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SANDRA 


BY 

PEARL DOLES BELL 

Author Of 

“The Autocrat,” Etc. 



®| W.J.'WA.TT &-CQ 

PUBLISHE Ps. y 
601 MADISON AVE.. MEW^ORK. 




Sts 






Copyright, 1924, by 
W. J. WATT & COMPANY 


Printed in the United States #/ America 


FEB 18’24 

Cl A T1 7 20 7 J 




MY DEAR BROTHERS 

HARLEY AND FRED 


SAFE IN THE 
PORT OF 
LOVE 



EVERY WOMAN 


Every woman is a wild, free thing— 

Deep inside! 

Every woman hears the spaces sing. 

Every woman would go wandering— 

Far and wide! 

Every woman, when the wild geese cry. 

In the Fall, 

Watches, with a furtive, wistful eye, 

Their swift arrow winging in the sky— 

Hears the call! 

There are women who can never bide 
Safe at home! 

They are restless as the tameless tide. 

They are drawn to where the great ships ride— 
They must roam! 

There are women who can never go 
Far away! 

Strange, new places they can never know. 

But they listen when the night winds blow— 
They must stay! 

Every day they make their kettles gleam, 

Shine them bright; 

Every day they sew a faithful seam, 

But—they stir and start in troubled dream 
In the night! 


If you ask them, they will never tell! 

They will say: 

“Leave the hearth and home I love so well? 

Leave the place where all my loved ones dwell? 

Ah, but nay!” 

But when ships go out . . . when seagulls rise • • • 
When winds blow . . . 

When the crying arrow southward flies . . . 

If you watch them—if you watch their eyes— 

You will know! 

Every woman is a wild, free thing 
Deep inside! 

Every woman hears the spaces sing. 

Every woman would go wandering— 

Far and wide! 

Roselle Mercier Montgomery. 
(From The New York Times , Sunday , May 18th, 1928.) 


SANDRA 


s 


CHAPTER I 

HE’S like no other woman in the world! All the 

rest of the women-” 

“I hadn’ supposed you knew them all! My 
goodness who’d ever believe you was only two years 
older than me!” 

Robert Stanley flushed. 

“I wish you would stop saying ‘hadn’.’ Can’t you 
say hadn't or had not? And please try to remember 
that it is more correct to say ‘you were’ and also ‘than 
I.’ I think mother and dad are making a great mis¬ 
take allowing you to be so—so slovenly with your Eng¬ 
lish.” 

“Really!” There was a dangerous sparkle in the 
brown eyes that looked up at him from the open pages 
of a popular fiction magazine. “Well,” Maitland Stan¬ 
ley’s slim fifteen-year-old figure stiffened by way of 
adding emphasis, “will you tell me this, Professor 


Stanley, can 
rect, isn’t it- 


a thing be 


more 


correct P If it’s cor- 


“As I was saying,” interrupted her brother hastily, 
“you would do well to pattern after Mrs. Waring. 
Now there is English for you! A leisurely manner of 
speech. No chatter. Just a slow beautiful way of 
speaking that-” 

“Maybe she can’t think as fast as I can. You know, 





2 


SANDRA 


Bobbie, I do think terribly fast. You have to acknowl¬ 
edge that, even if I am your sister!” 

“I am too well bred to correct you in your use of 
the word think. Though, if I were you, I should look 
it up in the dictionary. I fear you do not understand 
its meaning,” replied the boy with an air of painfully 
tried patience. It was disturbing to come direct from 
college to— this. His aestheticism would be in shreds 
—absolute shreds, by the time his vacation came to an 
end. Indeed, if it were not for Mrs. Waring- 

“Well-bred! He who speaks too well of himself 


“Whom are you quoting?” 

“Whom?” 

“Yes, whom!" 

“Bobbie!” Maitland twisted round interestedly in 
her end of the veranda swing, and her gaze rested al¬ 
most friendily on the young man who leaned languidly 
against the striped canvas which supported the other 
end. “Do you have to say whom all the time at col¬ 
lege ?” 

“Not all the time. One, of course, says who when 
one is speaking-” 

“Yes, I know. We have to say whom in school, 
too. But it’s terribly awkward. Mr. David thinks 
just as I do about it. He says-” 

“Mr. David?” Robert turned slightly toward her, 
faint interest on his habitually bored face. 

“Mrs. Waring’s husband. David Waring. When 
they built the place next door and moved down here, 
he and I-” 

“Her husband!” Robert Stanley gazed dreamily 







SANDRA 


a 

off toward the wide, low-roofed, stone and timber 
house that rose from the green terraces beyond the 
Stanley hedge. 

“Got acquainted almost at once. SJie wasn’t so— 
so sociable.” The girl’s smooth forehead puckered, 
and the slim fingers of one tanned hand drummed nois- 
lessly against the magazine which lay in her blue and 
white ginghamed lap. “X don’t think she liked us 
down here. The village, I mean. She used to motor 
up to New York nearly every day, and to have her 
city friends out here a lot. But after awhile, maybe 
to make Mr. David happy, she returned Mother’s call. 
And then she sort of got acquainted over at the coun¬ 
try club where everybody thought she was beautiful 
and-” 

“Why shouldn’t they? An exquisite Titian among 
a lot of flat-footed golfers!” 

“There are a lot of beautiful women down here, 
Bobbie!” defended Maitland warmly. “And lovely 
girls, the kind Mother would be glad to have you like. 

I don’t see why you refuse to look at anybody but 
Sandra Waring!” 

“You’re too young to understand, my dear,” Robert 
Stanley clasped an almost mannish hand for one elo¬ 
quent moment to his eyes, while he whispered softly: 
“Sandra! Sandral How weird! How sweetly exotic!” 

“I don’t think it’s weird—her name! Nor exotic.. 
But it does seem to some way fit her, doesn’t it, Bob¬ 
bie?” 

Robert dropped his hands from his eyes and flung 
round half-angrily. 

“You’re jealous of her! So is Mother!” 



4 


SANDRA 


“Bobbie!” 

“You are! And please don’t call me Bobbie. I’ve 
been in long pants nearly four years and it’s about 
time you learned to call me Bob! As for Mrs. War¬ 
ing—” his voice caught suspiciously in his silk-col¬ 
lared throat and he turned his moistening blue eyes 
away from the inquisitive brown ones. 

“And I suppose because Mother keeps me in medium- 
short skirts, you’ll go on calling me Mate until some¬ 
body in your old college tells you that a sister is a 
human person and due your respect.” Maitland made 
a magnanimous gesture and got up from the swing. 
“But I don’t care,” she said, tucking her magazine un¬ 
der her arm and leaning against a vine-wrapped pil¬ 
lar, “Mr. David has taught me to be—philosophical.” 

After a long interval of silence: 

“I said,” she turned her small brown head and looked 
at her brother across her shoulder, “that Mr. David 
had taught me to be philosophical!” 

“Indeed!” 

“Yes, indeed! And when you’re philosophical you 
can-” 

“He must be a marvel if he can teach you anything!” 

“He’s marvelouser than anybody on earth. He 
taught her a lot of things!” 

“What?” 

“Oh, a lot of things!” replied Maitland airily, flat¬ 
tered at the show of interest on her brother’s face. 

“So you said before. Can’t you—elucidate?” 

“Elucidate!” Maitland’s small red mouth puckered 
to a shrill whistle. “That’s worse than whom. And 
it’s awkwarder. Wouldn’t it be just as good English 
to say Tor instance’?” 



SANDRA 


5 


Robert Stanley crossed his white flanneled legs. Un¬ 
crossed them. Stood up. 

“For instance, then,” he said, straightening himself 
to his five-feet-eight-and-three-quarters, and looking 
down into the roguish face of his sister. “This Mr. 
David, as you call him,—what did he teach her?” 

Maitland looked at the white flannels and thought 
how silly it was for a boy of seventeen to try to look 
like a man of— twenty . Now if somebody would only 
teach him to be philosophical - 

“What did he teach her?” repeated her brother per- 
severingly. 

“Mercy! are you still talking about that?” She 
looked up at him in some surprise. It was really amaz¬ 
ing how sluggishly some persons’ minds moved. 

“I haven’t had a chance to talk about it,” replied 
Robert patiently. “I have merely asked a question 
which you have not been polite enough to answer. Of 
course, if you don’t know-” 

“Oh, I do. But it was so long ago that I spoke 
of it, and I’ve thought of so many things since.” 

Robert grunted and started to move away toward 
the double screen doors that led into the house. 

Maitland looked with near-contrition at his blue- 
serged back. 

“Well,” she began animatedly, “he taught her to swim 
and to hunt and to fish-” 

“One doesn’t need to be taught how to fish!” cor¬ 
rected young Stanley, turning back from the screen 
doors. 

“You don’t know anything about it. Professor 
Stanley. Mr. David doesn’t fish the way you and I 
used to fish in the creek down by the club. He hag 






6 


SANDRA 


ever so many books of funny thing-a-ma-jigs that he 
calls flies, and he taught Sandra Waring how to cast 
with them on the end of her line. He told me that she 
had once caught a trout that weighed-” 

“What else has he taught her?” The boy’s eyes lifted 
to the house next door. 

“How to light a camp fire by rubbing two sticks 
together! Think of it, Bobbie! Mr. David knows all 
those primitive things!” 

“She is not the sort of woman to enjoy making 
camp fires,” brooded the boy half to himself. “There’s 
something about her that makes one think of poetry 
and music and—and-” 

“I said,” persisted Maitland, “that Mr. David 
knows how to do so many primitive things!” 

“God! No, not God. She never makes one think 
of-” 

“Maybe you don’t know what primitive means!” 

“Primitive! Oh, yes! You were saying-” 

“Bobbie Stanley, did what I said just reach you? 
If it did, then you ought to talk in a more leisurely 
way than—than Sandra Waring, because your mind 
doesn’t just go sluggishly —it halts!” 

“Are you inferring that Mrs. Waring’s mind-” 

“No, I’m not! I’m inferring about yours! Mrs. 
Waring,” the brown eyes grew beautifully soft and 
tender, “is the cleverest woman we’ve ever known, 
Bobbie!” 

“And the most beautiful!” added the boy gratefully. 

“And the most beautiful,” agreed his sister softly, 
as they both looked once more across their hedge to 
the stone and timber house. 







SANDRA 7 

I’m glad you love her, too,” whispered the boy, 
reaching out and touching ever so fleetingly the firm 
young hand that hung against the blue gingham frock. 

“That’s just it, Bobbie. I’m not sure that I do 
love her.” The smooth brow of the girl puckered once 
again to a troubled frown. “I think she won’t let me 
love her. Sort of holds me off. ... I can’t explain 
it exactly. But it’s just as if she were a splendid idol 
you know, Bobbie, something to be worshipped from 
a distance, and—not touched!” 

“I think I understand,” said young Stanley in awed 

tones. “I felt the same thing at first. But now_” 

he flushed, and thankful that his sister’s eyes were not 
searching his face, he went on, “I want to touch her. 

• • ' strange, Mate, how a man will feel about 
certain women- 


u You’re only seventeen!” 

“To you, perhaps, who can think only mathemat- 
ically. In reality I’m old.” 

His sister’s eyes, hard now as discs of polished tor¬ 
toise shell, looked him over appraisingly. 

“You may be an antique, Bobbie dear, but you don’t 
look it. You’re too well stuck together. Now if you’d 
begun to fall apart—if you was a bit bald~ like 
Dad-” 


“There’s that ‘you was’ again,” sighed the Stanley 
boy plaintively. “And please, Mate, dispense with 
the sarcasm. It is not becoming in one so young. And 
anyway-” 

“Oh, is that so? Well, you just please stop calling 
me Mate! I may not be an antique but I’ve a perfect 
right to be dignified, and nobody on this whole earth 




8 


SANDRA 


can be dignified with somebody that’s supposed to be 
his brother, calling him Mate!” 

“Why I should call that one of the prettiest names 
in the world!” 

“Mr. David!” 

“At your service, Mate!” 

Maitland Stanley had swung round eagerly at sound 
of another’s voice coming from the steps of the ver¬ 
anda, and her small piquant face glowed with frank 
joy at sight of the visitor, who was smiling amusedly 
back at her. 

“It sounds different some way, now !” she returned 
naively. “I guess there isn’t any kind of a name that 
sounds very nice when a brother says it.” 

David Waring laughed softly. 

“Rather hard on you, isn’t she, Rob?” he asked, 
turning to the boy, who was staring moodily down the 
road toward the railway station. 

“She doesn’t bother me” said Robert, shrugging his 
narrow shoulders disdainfully. “I simply will not call 
her Maitland!” He flung round on his inquisitor de¬ 
fiantly. “Why, it sounds like the name of a Hudson 
River excursion boat! When parents wish such names 
on their offspring-” 

“Mercy! The professor has started again!” 

“They shouldn’t expect intelligent people to-” 

“Didn’t I tell you, Mr. David! I guess if you stick 
around awhile, you’ll learn a lot from Bobbie Stanley 
R. F. D.” 

“There she goes again! But I suppose, Mr. War¬ 
ing, you’ve lived next door to us long enough to know 
my sister’s mental limitations. In five months you’ve 




SANDRA 9 

probably discovered that she would be likely to sneer 
at her own brother and attach to his name such per¬ 
fectly meaningless letters as R. F. D.” 

“They’re not meaningless, Mr. David. They mean 
Rural Free Delivery,” cried the girl defensively, as 
she wrinkled her tanned little nose at her brother. 
David Waring shook himself uncomfortably like a 

great Newfoundland dog that is finding himself in the 
way. 

“But why did you- 

“Because,” interrupted the girl, “that’s just what he 
IS! A rural free delivery.” 

Robert Stanley’s mouth sagged open in sheer sur¬ 
prise. Never before had he known his sister to an¬ 
swer so to the point. Quick at repartee she was, he 
would not deny that, but this—this answer had been 
little short of an inspiration. He tried to fling some 
sort of retort at her, but succeeded in making only a 
faint, throaty noise. Then much to his relief the sub- 
ject was abruptly changed. 

And what am I, disparager-of-men ?” inquired 
Waring with mock gravity. 

“What does Mrs. Waring call you?” countered Mate 
craftily. 

A shadow dimmed for an instant the sea-blue eyes 
that gazed steadily back into the yellow-flecked brown 
ones. 

“Oh, Sandra!” his voice lingered with odd wistful¬ 
ness on the name. “She’s called me so many things!” 

“Elucidate, please,” commanded Mate, pursing her 
lips and elevating her delicate brows in reply to her 
brother’s startled look. 



10 


SANDRA 


“Yes?” said David absently. 

“Elucidate,” explained Mate with an air of sorely 
tried patience, “means, for instance. 

“She’s mocking me, Mr. Waring. And Dad told her 
last night, that if she didn’t stop mocking me-” 

“He’d be blessed if he knew what he’d do. Bobbie 
worries him so about it. You know, Mr. David, Bob¬ 
bie’s a terrible gossip. Repeats everything he hears. 
Tells Dad everything I say and-” 

“You asked Mr. Waring a question. Miss Maitland 
Stanley. Perhaps you would be silent long enough for 
him to answer.” 

“Certainly, Professor Robert Stanley R. E. D.” 

“What does she—Mrs. Waring—call you, Mr. War¬ 
ing?” 

David looked off toward the tree-fringed horizon. 

“When we were first married—sixteen years ago— 
she called me,” he cleared his throat, “David-Never- 
Grow-Up. Then I became David-Can’t-Grow-Up. 
Latterly,” again he cleared his throat, “I’ve been 
David-Please-Grow-Up.” He smiled whimsically. 
“You see,” he explained hastily, “I’m rather a bad lot 
in a drawing-room, or at a club dance. And she’s 
been much too patient with me.” 

“But you are grown up,” argued Mate in some puz¬ 
zlement. 

“Never mind Mate, Mr. Waring. She doesn’t un¬ 
derstand. She’s too young. Perhaps you wouldn’t 
mind telling me-” 

“I’m only two years three weeks and two days 
younger than you, Bobbie-Stanley-Aged-Seventeen!” 

“Perhaps,” went on Robert heroically, “you will 





SANDRA 


II 

not mind telling me, Mr. Waring, what you call Tier 
Mrs. Waring. These things are so interesting, don’t 
you think? Though I suppose it is indelicate of me to 

ask you to—er—to disclose your intimate-” 

“Oh, listen to the R. F. D.! Listen to the R. F. D.!” 
“Please, Mate!” David Waring’s gentle blue eyes 
calmed the fires of mischief in the laughing brown 
ones. 

I won’t, Mr. David,” apologized Mate humbly, 
much to her brother’s amazement. Into her saucy 
young face had come something of Waring’s own 
gentleness, and Robert stared at her in wonder. 

“It’s quite all right, Rob, your question. Fact is 
I’ve seldom called Mrs. Waring Sandra . The name 
has always frightened me, somehow. I could never 
get acquainted with it, and it always made me feel 
self-conscious and awkward. Strange, isn’t it?” He 
laughed a shy, rumbling laugh and made a little dep¬ 
recating gesture. “I’m afraid it’s annoyed her, too, 
my not being able to call her that. But she’s such a 
brick about things—things that—that she doesn’t 
like. He turned his great head and looked across the 
hedge to his own house, and again he shook himself 
like a Newfoundland dog that finds himself in the way. 

“If you don’t call her Sandra, what do you call her?” 
persisted Robert. 

“Rusty,” said David Waring softly. 

“Rustyr 

“Didn’t you hear, Bobbie Stanley? Or did your 
mind halt again?” 

“Rusty,” repeated David Waring, still gazing 
across at his low-roofed house, “because her hair 



12 


SANDRA 


is the beautiful, incomparable shade of rust.” 

“Titian,” commented Robert. 

“The warm red-brown of rust,” corrected Waring 
imperturbably. 

“Rusty!” Mate looked at the man adoringly. “It’s 
the darlingest name in the world! She must love it!” 

“Don’t gush!” reproved Robert in frank disgust. 

“You’ve been gushing yourself, Mistev Stanley! 
What do you think, Mr. David, Bobbie’s got a crush 
on Mrs. Waring! He moons about her!” 

Came a stifled groan—a muttered word about Dad, 
and the screen doors slammed behind the discomfited 
Robert Stanley. 

“Oh!” little Mate Stanley made great round eyes 
at the green screen doors. “He went and got sore 
just because I said that he had a crush on Mrs. War¬ 
ing. But he has, Mr. David,” she laid a slim hand on 
one of Waring’s arms and nodded her small bronze 
head emphatically, “honest he has!” 

David Waring looked gravely down at the sun- 
browned fingers that had begun to twist a button at 
the end of his tweed coat sleeve. 

“They all like her—men, I mean,” he said quietly. 
“I don’t know—” he was talking half to himself now, 
forgetful of the girl beside him—“precisely what her 
power is. There’s something besides her beauty— 
some charm that men cannot resist. Yet she has been 
contented all these years to belong to me—plain David 
Waring—a mediocre architect.” 

“How old was she when you married her, Mr. David ?” 
breathed Mate leaning close. 

“Eighteen. I was her first sweetheart. I found 


SANDRA 


13 


her, fell in love with her and asked her to marry me, 
on the day she arrived home from her finishing school.” 

“Her first sweetheart!” Mate bent her small head 
and pressed an oval cheek against the rough tweed 
sleeve. “It must have been—wonderful!” 

“Her first,” echoed Waring, “and please God, I 
shall be her last!” 

“She was just three years older than—than I am 
now, Mr. David. It—it must have been wonderful!” 
Mate’s voice broke uncertainly. 

David Waring started. He moved a little and 
peered down into the piquant face. 

“Well, bless my soul! Tears! What’s the fog 
about, little Mate!” 

The brown eyes met his bravely. 

“It—it’s all so beautiful, Mr. David. You and 
Sandra —I mean Rusty —and the—the way you love 
each other! I don’t know why,” she smiled a wavery, 
deprecating little smile, “but it puts a—a lump in my 
throat. I—I want to cry, Mr. David dear, I’m so 
happy because—because you’re happy.” 

“What a strange little brown squirrel you are!” 
smiled David, laying, with awkward tenderness, a sinewy 
hand on the girl’s bronze head. “I must tell Rusty 
what a blessing you have put upon our marriage. 
You’ll be a sort of mascot to our love—Rusty’s and 
mine! And now,” he held her off from him at arm’s 
length and looked into the eyes that were lifted wor- 
shipfully to his, “run along and defend yourself before 
the court presided over by your splendid Peter Stanley. 
And I’ll run home and get into a silly, uncomfortable 
stiff white collar and a foolish old dinner jacket!” 


CHAPTER II 


D AVID WARING swung across the grass plot 
to the neatly trimmed hedge, which he vaulted 
with an agility that did credit to the magnifi¬ 
cently correlated muscles of his smooth-skinned body. 
Gates were not for such as he. Every fiber of his 
lean strong body, every sinew of his long loose limbs 
were instinct with contempt for the path that had no 
hurdles. Try as he would to be stiffly dignified for 
Sandra’s sake, there were times when even the scorch¬ 
ing reproach from her gray-green eyes was to be pre¬ 
ferred to the itching of those superbly developed, non¬ 
aging sinews. 

The other side the hedge, he glanced sheepishly up 
at a pair of filet-frosted French windows at the near 
corner of the house under the wide-overhanging roof 
of velvety brown timbers and old Spanish tile. He 
hoped Sandra had not seen. Not that she would 
speak of it. That was not Sandra’s way. He could 
wish it were. He would be able to cope with words— 
at least, he would be able to cope with the most of 
them—Sandra’s words were not always understand¬ 
able. His mind was not so swift of movement as was 
hers. 

She had bogged him all too frequently and much to 
the disadvantage of his poise. Physically he could 
balance on a rolling log in a swirling stream—he had 
actually done it one time, near a logging camp in 
14 


SANDRA 


15 

Oregon—but mentally he could not hold his own against 
Sandra. She could make him flounder helplessly, con¬ 
fusedly. Still, Sandra’s displeasure put into words 
was so much easier to bear than Sandra’s scorn swathed 
in silence. She could do such a lot—could Sandra 

with the faintest lifting of the corners of her red 
mouth, or a cool steady glance from her appraising 
eyes. She could evei^ put her displeasure into the 
tenderest kind of a caress. He remembered the first 
time she had kissed him in that way. He had done 
something for which he knew he should apologize, but 
she had smothered back his speech with a pressure of 
her mouth against his, and, delighted at her sweet 
generosity, he had been amazed to find himself sud¬ 
denly possessed of the feeling that she had scratched 
a sandbur across his lips. The feeling had bewildered 
him. He had tried to laugh it off. But it had re¬ 
mained with him—that weird impression that his lips 
had been lacerated. 

He frowned a little now, as he remembered that first 
chastising caress. What a strange, magnificent crea¬ 
ture she was—Sandra! Funny, how he always thought 
of her as Sandra at these times when he had risked 
her displeasure! Perhaps it was because, feeling so 
thoroughly the culprit, his conscience refused the in¬ 
timacy of Rusty. Sandra placed her at a distance 
from him. 

He wished he could know her better—be less afraid 
of her. 

He chuckled at the thought and moved on toward 
the shadowing veranda that was splotched as an ar¬ 
tist’s palette with vivid colors—silken pillows that 


16 


SANDRA 


piled high the long low seats and broad wicker chairs. 

It was just as if she were his Mother, this beautiful 
Sandra, and he a bad boy who was forever breaking 
the china. And after all, he thought, that was as it 
should be. Men were always little boys in their love, 
and women always Mothers! 

His mother-girl! Rusty—with the firm smooth 

bosom where his head had so often pillowed! 

He sighed. It would have been so wonderful! A 
tiny round baby head nestling between her satiny white 
breasts! Rusty’s baby! It would have had her glis¬ 
tening red hair, her dear green eyes, and maybe— 
there was just the chance—it would be a boy a 
David Waring-the-Second who would fish with him, 
and romp with him, and grow up to be the great master 
of architecture which he himself had failed to be. 
And together they would face their mother-girl’s 
chastisements! They would, perhaps, even wink at 
each other when she turned her lovely head. And how 
gallantly they would defend one another! 

She would be proud of him\ Why, this David-the- 
Second would build a masterpiece, and they—Rusty 
and he—would stand together in the center of a great 
crowd that would be staring up at it in silent awe. And 
he would clasp Rusty’s hand and try to gulp some 
whispered word to her about their son! And she 
would lift her wet mother-eyes to some splendid Gothic 
pinnacle, as if to say: “See, David! It touches 
God’s sky!” 

David Waring cleared his throat and paused on 
the lowest of his shallow stone steps. He looked 
dazedly about for an instant as though he expected to 


SANDRA 17 

find this other David Waring awaiting him. Then he 
shook himself in that queer Newfoundland way, and 
looked gravely along the veranda at the pageantry of 
mad sharp colors across which dusk was drawing a 
softening veil. A faint frown of disapproval gathered 
between his straight brown brows. But immediately it 
disappeared. 

Those colors—the wicker chairs with their bright 
cord and tassel ornaments—the hanging fern baskets! 
They were out of harmony with the design of the house. 
They were like the French windows beneath the fine 
old Spanish tile! 

What a time he and Sandra had had about those 
windows. He had wanted this house of theirs to be 
perfect of architecture—absolute of design. He had 
wanted it passionately, and not often in his life had 
he wanted anything passionately—tremendously. But 
Sandra had wanted the French windows—just 
as she had wanted carte blanche with the veranda, 
and- 

Well—he smiled indulgently—the windows and the 
veranda had turned out to be—not Sandra, but Rusty. 
Rusty who was herself a bewildering mixture of de¬ 
signs—who was herself a pageantry of sharp mad col- 
lors. Inconsistent! Always and forever inconsistent 
was this flaming Rusty of his. And he would not have 
her otherwise, even if through all eternity he must 
stumble to keep up with her strange, wild flights. 

He went into the house whistling softly and paused 
at the foot of the broad stairs to inquire of a maid 
who was passing through the living room if Mrs. 
Waring had come down. 



18 


SANDRA 


“Not yet, sir,” said the girl, “I think she is dressing 
for dinner.” 

Dressing for dinner! 

David smiled tenderly. Never would Sandra be 
middle-class! Rusty, for example, would sit with him 
on a blanket beside a camp fire and eat crisp bacon 
from between her fingers, and sleep with him on a bed 
of pine needles. But Sandra! She made a ceremony 
of this dinner business—a fetish of form and here in 
this house which he had built for Rusty this Sandra 
had even arranged separate sleeping-chambers. 

What a corking thing it would be, he ruminated, as 
he rapped shyly on his wife’s door, if only he could 
divorce Sandra and—run away to the woods with 
Rusty! He laughed. He thought that Rusty—could 
he tell her the idea in confidence—would even help 
him to do it. How they would laugh together over it! 
Maybe on Friday when they went on that cruise- 

“Is that you, David?” came in a clear, silvery voice 
from beyond the closed door. “Come in.” 

David opened the door and shambled across its 
threshold—for though David made real effort to walk 
as other men walked, he failed dismally. He hurdled 
or strode or shambled. He had the swinging, loose- 
jointed stride of an Indian, and since this swinging 
gait had seemed to jeopardize the china and to annoy 
Sandra when he made it his mode of travel in the 
house, he had tried to learn the mincing walk of the 
men held up to him by Sandra as examples. He had 
succeeded only in fashioning a sort of lumbering 
shamble. 

“Hullo!” he said genially, pausing to drink in the 



SANDRA 19 

beauty of her, as always he did at first sight of her 
after even the briefest absence. 

She was sitting before a triple-mirrored dressing 
table, deftly crimsoning her thin, mobile lips with a 
gold-mounted rouge stick, and though she did not 
look round at him, there was a welcoming smile on 
the lips, and the rouge stick paused in its work to 
make a little invitational gesture toward a jade-enam¬ 
eled chair a few feet away. She was wearing a low- 
cut gown of some colorless, diaphanous material that 
was shot startingly with glistening golden threads. 
Her rust-red hair was drawn sharply back from her 
white forehead and up from her slim graceful neck 
to a cleverly arranged disorder of loose, puffy curls 
that apparently were held in place by an extremely 
high jet comb. Her shoulders were exquisitely modeled. 
Her breast was satiny and white. 

Seeing her so, it was hard for David to believe that 
she could be the Rusty who, in flat red braids, knick¬ 
ers and stout little boots, or an abbreviated boyish 
bathing suit, chummed with him through the week¬ 
ends. ... He did wish she would not put that rouge 
on her lips. He wondered if he might not speak to 
her about it. He might tell Rusty. He thought Rusty 
would understand and- 

“How are the Stanley children today?” asked 
Sandra, laying down the rouge stick and reaching for 
a crystal atomizer. “I saw you talking to them on 
their veranda.” 

David leaned across the back of the jade-enameled 
chair and looked at the bare white breast in the center 
mirror. 




20 SANDRA 

“Robert still a bit patronizing. Mate still delight¬ 
fully saucy. They set me dreaming just now, Rusty. 
Know what I dreamed?” he asked, his eyes still upon 
the smooth white breast, his heavy voice going a trifle 
husky. 

“That you were catching trout, I suppose,” guessed 
Sandra Waring, spraying a pulse-thrilling scent 
through her shimmering hair straight to David’s nos- 
trils. 

“Not this time, Rusty.” He smiled sheepishly. “I 
stood downstairs on our steps,” he said, “and dreamed 
that we—you and I, Rusty—had a son like—like that 
boy of Peter Stanley’s. First he was a baby. A tiny 
baby here on your breast.” He bent over and touched 
with shy, awkward fingers her cool, firm flesh. “But 
he grew up, all in a moment, while I stood there, and 
then-” 

“Yes?” The eyes in the mirror met his, the 
rouged lips smiled encouragingly. “And then, David?” 

“And then,” continued Waring, allowing his fingers 
to slide caressingly along her neck to the edge of her 
rust-red hair, “he was a great architect. He was 
doing the fine things that I had—had hoped to do. 
And you and I were so proud of him, Rusty.” 

“Of course. We would be, David.” 

“He—he brought us very close together. Rusty.” 
David swallowed at something that had come into his 
throat. 

“I think that’s a silly idea,” said Sandra, turning 
her head to look up at him. “Why should children 
make any closer the relationship existing between a man 
and his wife?” A faint frown shadowed her forehead. 



SANDRA 


21 

“Peter and Eve are inoculating you with a lot of 
their foolish, old-fashioned theories.” 

“Peter and Eve had nothing to do with—with my 
dream,” denied David, flushing slightly. “It was 

those children. I think, perhaps, I was lonely for_ 

for a son.” 

‘I can’t understand why you should be lonely, 
David dear. Surely you could not have wished for a 
better pal than I have been. As for Peter and 
Eve-” 

“You’ve been wonderful, Rusty. No other woman 
on earth would have bothered to be to a man what you 
have been to me. I guess I’m a selfish sort of duffer- 
wanting everything. Why I wouldn’t trade you, darl¬ 
ing, for all the Eves in the world. You know that, 
don’t you, Rusty?” 

But a son, David. You said you were lonely for 
a—a son!” 

“Just a dream, honey,” soothed David, his eyes 
turning fleetingly toward the window that looked out 
upon the Stanley veranda. “Just a dream that I was 
—lonely.” 

Sandra reached up and took his broad hand between 
her two narrow ones, and for a moment the sea-green 
eyes fogged to a misty gray. 

“Please, David! Don’t wish we were like Peter and 
Eve. I couldn’t bear to be like Peter and Eve. They’re 
inane—stodgy.” She sighed and dropped the hand 
that had gripped convulsively at hers. “Life is such 
a splendid adventure for some people,” she murmured, 
looking back into the center mirror to vaguely pic¬ 
tured romances, “but not for such as Peter and Eve. 



SANDRA 


22 

They live kalsomined lives. No flares—no splashes 
of vivid color—no brilliant design—no flaming detail. 
Just flat uniformity—kalsomine!” 

David hurried imaginatively after her. It was not 
easy to keep up with Sandra’s swift sketching. She 
disdained technique. She despised the slow process of 
filling-in. She drew her pictures with sharp, impa¬ 
tient strokes. While he was apt to labor painstakingly 
with minutest details. 

“We’ve the splashes of color, though, haven’t we. 
Rusty? Our sojourns into the simple life! They’re 
bright spots! No monotony for us, eh?” 

“Our every week sojourn?” Sandra’s mirrored 
eyes avoided his. “Well, they’ve hardly the element of 
the unexpected, have they, these trips into the simple 
life?” 

“Why,” David fingered a powder puff at the corner 
of the table, “we never know what sort of luck we’re 
going to have.” He had begun to stumble. “Some¬ 
times the fish-” 

“Don’t strike,” finished Sandra smoothly. “And 
sometimes we catch a larger trout or bass than usual. 
If we’re hunting we don’t kill the same deer every day 
of the season. The laws of nature prevent it. But 
there is nothing unusual, David, in not having always 
to kill the same deer or catch the same fish.” 

“But the woods, Rusty!” David’s face brightened. 
“They’re never the same. Remember the reds and 
browns and golds of the Adirondacks, last Autumn? 
They were like your hair! And last Spring, along the 
Hudson—that day you found the first violet—the 



SANDRA 


23 

maple trees were so delicately green! Remember, 
Rusty ?” 

“They were nice! The reds and browns and golds, 
and the maple green. Yes, they were very nice. But 
this Autumn there will be more reds and browns and 
golds, and next Spring there will be more maple green.” 
She paused and the beautiful eyes clouded mysteri¬ 
ously. “And when we are dead, David, the woods will 
go on doing just exactly the same things.” 

“Yes,” said David simply. 

But Paris and Venice will not be the same. They 
are not the same today that yesterday they were. And 
they will be different tomorrow. New songs! New 
dances! New dramas! New romances! Filled with 
men and women who live kaleidoscopic lives! George 
Sand could love most tenderly a warmly red maple leaf, 
but also she knew adventure—passion—romance. 
Camille Sappho—they knew the changing shades of 
men’s hearts. They measured the strength of men’s 
souls.” 

\ ou sound like a sub-title in a motion-picture 
story,” said David amusedly. He leaned over and 
touched his lips to her scented hair. 

I was a bit slushy, wasn’t I?” Sandra Waring put 
up a hand and patted her husband’s arm. “Talking 
about the Stanleys and—and monotony did it. You 
know how intensely I do hate monotony, don’t you 
David boy ?” She smiled deprecatingly. “How an 
actress can say the same lines—make the same ges¬ 
tures night after night—matinee after matinee—for 
months, I could never understand. I think that 


even- 



24 


SANDRA 


She stopped speaking abruptly, and inclining her 
head, fell to inspecting her perfectly polished nails. 
What she had been going to say was—that even a 
too calm happiness was palling upon her! 

“You’re a witch. Rusty. No wonder everybody 
falls in love with you.” David poked a finger through 
one of the loose curls at the top of her perfectly mod¬ 
eled head. 

“Am I still beautiful, David?” She was almost wist¬ 
ful as she looked up from the tapering ends of her 
pink nails. 

“Can’t you see for yourself in the glass?” laughed 
David, abstractedly picking a bit of lint from his 
tweed coat. 

“I don’t want to see myself with my own eyes, as 
much as I do with the eyes of others. . . . I—I don’t 
want to grow old, David.” 

“Thirty-four isn’t old, darling.” David’s mind went 
back to the Stanley boy. “Haven’t realized it before. 
Rusty, but you and I could have a son almost as old 
as Robert. Think of it! Peter’s only thirty-seven. 
Just a year older than I. And Peter’s got-” 

The wistfulness faded from Sandra’s eyes. 

“What have years to do with one’s age! I’ll never 
be old. Eve! Look at her! Faded and jaded! 
That’s what this wonderful thing called motherhood 
has done for her! She’s sacrificed life and youth for 
a couple of young ingrates who take her sacrifices as 
their due.” 

“Why, Rusty! Eve hasn’t sacrificed life and youth. 
She’s created life and—youth.” 

“But not for herself.” 



SANDRA 


25 


Sandra pushed him a little way from her, and her 
gaze was hot on his face. 

“As for growing old,” ventured David timidly, “you 
are right. You will be young always. Your hair will 
turn white some day, perhaps, and your eyes may 
become to others less beautiful. But to me, Rusty, you 
will be always and forever the same. One doesn’t love 


another’s outside wrappings. He may admire them— 
be proud of them. But it is something else—some 
imperishable thing—that he loves.” 

Sandra s white lids lowered, and a muscle moved in 
the slender column of her throat. She stood up and 
leaned her head lightly against her husband’s shoul¬ 
der. One of her hands sought his face, and a slim 
finger laid itself across his lips. 

“You’re much too good for me, David boy. I wish 
I were more worth while. Having rust-red hair and 
green eyes would be enough for many men, David. 
But they’re not half enough for you. I should have 
borne your children. Filled all your wants. I should 
have-” 


“Hush!” whispered David. “You’ve been every¬ 
thing wife—mother—little girl—pal! I’m so rich 
having you, that sometimes in the night, I wake with 
the fright that I might lose you. If God should take 

you away from me, Rusty, I-” 

“There are a lot of thieves, David. And they’re 
much more to be feared than your God,” replied Sandra 
softly, lifting her head and moving across the room to 
the window. 


David puzzled over her words for a moment and 




SANDRA 


26 

making nothing of them, lumbered off toward the door, 
whistling tunelessly. 

“Did you play your nine holes with Mate this morn¬ 
ing?” Sandra called to him casually as she looked down 
to the Stanley veranda where the electric light had 
just flashed on. “I forgot at noon to ask you.” 

David paused, his hand on the knob of the door. 

“Only three. She got mad when she lost her fourth 
ball and informing me with great emphasis that she 
thought golf was stupid, went back to the clubhouse 
where a lot of other flappers were dancing to the music 
of a phonograph.” David chuckled. “She said she 
thought a woman who could shoot wild beasts ought 
to like golf. I think she’s going to try to persuade you 
to play with me.” 

“Don’t I play with you, David?” Sandra looked at 
him across a bare shoulder, her brows elevated quiz¬ 
zically. 

“Not golf.” 

Sandra laughed. 

“Everything but golf! And really, David dear,” 
she smiled archly, “don’t you think it silly for a woman 
with a back like mine, to play golf?” 

“Back?” David stared at her. “Why, I didn’t know 
there was anything wrong with your back. It’s the 
first I’ve heard-” 

“There isn’t, David.” 

She looked at him thoughtfully—appraisingly, as 
he stood there staring at her with puzzled eyes. Why, 
she wondered, did his hair always look so disheveled. 
He had such a shock of it, too. It was, however, of 
an extremely nice chestnut color. Moreover, that 



SANDRA 


27 

tumbled windblown mass of wayward, half-curled locks 
was to be preferred to baldness. So many men were 
bald. Even Peter Stanley was bald—or almost. And 
there was a certain degree of vulgarity about baldness 

it was clerky, too, and Dickensesque. 

Oh, yes! he had nice hair—David. But it could 
never be made to look silken and smooth. She could 
not imagine a man with such a shock of hair as being 
the suave gentleman of the hour. She could , however, 
see that tumbled mass behind a school desk. 

That was just it! Always David was a boy—a boy 
grown big. 

She sighed. 

He aroused in her an unwelcome tenderness that was 
unmistakably an element of mother-love, and —she was 
not made for that hind of love. It had no more place 
in her than a bee had in Paris. And yet—this David 
of hers, with his coat-belt hanging loose and his pock¬ 
ets stuffed with golf balls and odd gloves—surely he 
was the perfect lover, and life without him would be 
vastly empty. 

“Guess I’ll be late getting dressed,” muttered David, 
dully conscious of her scrutiny. “Didn’t remember 
about guests coming. I’d better jog along. I haven’t 
—Oh, by-the-way! you mentioned my getting some new 
ties—miserable things to make a bow of—and I forgot 
them when I was in the city yesterday. Sorry, Rusty. 
Maybe one of the maids can press-” 

“You’ll find several new ones in your top drawer,” 
interrupted Sandra, smilingly shaking her head at him. 
“I telephoned and had them sent out.” 

David grinned. 



28 


SANDRA 


“Going to have me properly tied, eh, honey ?” 

“Don’t be facetious, David. Please!” 

“All right, Rusty, I sha’n’t.” 

The door opened and closed and Sandra Waring 
was alone. She looked steadily at the closed door for 
a full minute, then she went over to her dressing table 
and picked up a long-handled mirror. Turning her 
back to the table mirrors she raised the hand glass and 
looked into it. A smile shadowed the corners of her 
mouth, and she nodded her riotously coiffed head at 
the reflection that met her gaze. 

She had been right. No woman with a back like 
hers should waste her time at playing golf. What a 
pity it was she had to live at Sea Cliff! How much 
to be regretted that David wouldn’t retire. Surely 
he had enough money for a few years of travel. And 
the world was so big. There were so many things to 
see—so many things to do. And already she was— 
thirty-four! 


CHAPTER III 


T HIRTY-FOUR! How insidiously the years had 
crept over her! They were barnacles that fed 
upon her youth. Why it was only yesterday 
that she had come home from school to find David a 
guest in her father’s house! Only this morning that 
he had slipped a wedding ring on her finger! She could 
still feel the solemnity of that moment, still recall the 
tender pride of if and the thrill of shamed curiosity 
that set her nerves a-tingle. There was the touch of 
her father’s lips to hers, and the warm, encouraging 
clasp of his hand, as his fingers—the long, sensitive 
fingers of the professional gambler, closed over hers! 
Why it couldn’t have been longer ago than this morn¬ 
ing! Yet- 

David had just reminded her that born of that 
shjamed curiosity appeased, she might now be the 
mother of a boy like this Robert Stanley. Sixteen 
years! Years! Years! Why had calendars so much 
to do with life! Why had she to mark time! 

# Sandra Waring replaced the hand-glass with a 
sigh, and sitting down once more at her dressing table 
leaned anxiously toward its mirrors. The inspection 
satisfied her. She smiled approvingly. 

“Helen of Troy! Bella Donna! Sappho! Camille!” 
she confided to the beautiful woman in the mirror. 
“Not one of you allowed the testimony of a cal¬ 
endar to rob you of romance, adventure, love. George 
Sand! Ah!” she smiled again as at an old friend, 
29 



30 


SANDRA 


“what a brave woman you were! You dared to take 
all the gods had to offer, and you cared not a whit 
what the world had to say about it! I have only to 
close my eyes to see you there in Venice, thrilling to 
a new adventure, growing young again under the spell 
of romance. . . . 

“Perhaps if you had had a David like mine, you d 
have missed Venice—missed adventure and romance. 
You’d have lived quietly, monotonously in a place like 
this Sea Cliff—contented as a cabbage. Or” she 
hesitated—“or as discontented as a melon vine that 
wanders off—any direction from its root—a vine that 
sometimes having an unaccountable scorn for the soil 
with which it is allied, sneaks away to bear its fruit 
on strange lands. Though I don’t think you’d have 
been guilty of the latter, George Sand, any more than 
would I. You might be driven to the point of tearing 
up your roots and transplanting them elsewhere, but 
you’d be loyal as long as you remained planted. You 
might yearn for the great passion and be discontented 
with the humdrum of passive love, but you couldn’t 
you wouldn’t—break faith with a—a David. 

“Look at me! A victim of my own sentimentality! 
A martyr to marriage vows taken at a time when I 
was too young to see life in its proper focus! Mar¬ 
riage vows that were made before I had tasted life’s 
wines which now must remain untasted.” 

The eyes that looked back at her were filled with 
sympathy. Certainly there could be no doubt that she 
had been cheated. And yet—The green eyes grew 
tender. What was it she wanted? In her heart there 
was no man but David. And unlike many husbands, 


SANDRA 


31 


David was the generous admirer, the ever-faithful 
lover! Was he not forever paying homage to her? 
Eloquent in his caresses? Cheated? How? In what 
manner? 

Sandra shrugged her lovely shoulders. She had no 
arguments to offer. Even in her cleverest and most 
introspective moments, she could find no answer to the 
questionings of her conscience. The discontent that 
possessed her was not understandable. She might as 
well try to understand electricity. She could know 
only that she was filled with a fierce determination to 
remain young—that she hated with all the strength of 
her nature, the ugliness of age and that she had 
missed her share of love-experimenting. 

She looked mechanically at the tiny gilt clock on 
the dressing table, and rose at once. There were guests 
for dinner. No doubt they had already arrived. And 
David was so anxious always about her being on time 
to receive his friends. Dear old David! He had told 
her this morning some glowing things about one of the 
friends who was coming out to them from the city. 
William James Hapgood, clergyman, thinker, writer, 
the most delightful of friends and—“a regular sport, 
Sandra! Likes baseball and all that!” 

David always glowed about his friends. Had a 
habit of painting the most absurdly flattering pictures 
of them. He was a queer sort, David. Made so few 
friends. Seemed to desire little social intercourse. 
Depended almost entirely upon her for companionship. 
She wished he might have cared more for the society of 
men. Wished he liked clubs. The few fogies he did 
know were senescent young men approaching middle 


32 


SANDRA 


age, or middle-aged men in the adolescence of old age. 
Their conversation ran to art, trout fishing and steel 
construction, and invariably they were either anaemic 
and thin or florid and fat. They were anything but 
exciting—anything but- 

“Rusty! Rusty, are you there?” 

It was David calling from the top of the stairs. 
The guests had arrived then, and he had come up 
for her. 

“Coming, David!” called back Sandra Waring. But 
even as she said it, she sank down again upon her 
chair and gazed at herself in the mirror. 

“There’s no use denying it—no use pretending to 
myself! I’m in revolt against David—against David 
and his Rusty and his house and Sea Cliff and the 
Stanleys next door and all the other Stanleys who go 
by the name of Smith, or Westcott, or Crandall, or 
Blake. I’m in revolt against my marriage—against 
its very security—its uneventfulness.” 

She clenched her white hands and caught for an in¬ 
stant between her teeth her rouged lower lip. 

“I’m mad!” she said finally, smoothing with her 
fingers a tiny frown from her forehead. “I can’t think 
what is getting into me, unless”—she picked up her 
rouge stick and touched it leisurely to her lips; “it’s 
this fear of old age. Life is so short—and I’ve-” 

“Sandra!” 

David was calling again from the stairs. How 
awful to have kept his guests waiting! Poor old 
David! He was probably quite flustered. 

She stood up and with smooth, unhurried steps, 
moved across the room to the door. 




SANDRA 33 

“David dear! Forgive me!” she whispered softly 
upon reaching the stairs. “It wasn’t I, David. It was 
Sandra. You know how she will sit at her mirrors!” 

David’s grave face brightened as if she had turned 
on a switch just behind it. 

“Rusty!” He reached an arm toward her. “I’m 
glad it’s you to-night. I was afraid Sandra might in¬ 
sist upon coming down alone—leaving you behind. 
They’ll fall in love with you, darling. Dick because 
he’s just plain mortal, and William James because— 
well, because he’s so like a god and you’re so like a 
goddess.” 

He slid a hand along the satiny surface of her 
back, but Sandra drew away with a little gesture of 
dismay. 

“Not now, David. You can’t kiss me now. You’ll 
muss my hair and—and spoil the Cleopatra lips Sandra 
has painted on me!” 

David’s hand dropped reluctantly. 

“Rusty! Couldn’t you—without telling Sandra”— 
he whispered hurriedly, glancing cautiously toward the 
big room below, “wipe off the—the make-up? William 
James is a clergyman, you know. Episcopal church in 
New York and-” 

“David, you wouldn’t want him to find faded cur¬ 
tains in your home, would you?” Sandra slipped a 
cool hand into one of his. 

“But you’re not—faded!” defended David Waring 
helplessly. 

Sandra lifted her mesmeric eyes to his, and the sor¬ 
cery of a witch was in her pleading smile. 



34 


SANDRA 


“Please, David dear! I want Sandra, too, at the 
party to-night. She’s so sure of herself—this San¬ 
dra—that I need her. I’m all right out in the woods 
with you and the rustling leaves and the wild things, 
but I simply can’t be hostess, David. You know that, 
don’t you, dear?” 

She bent her head and the perfume of her hair 
swept sweetly through David’s nostrils. 

“Yes. But-” 

“And no matter how much we love her, David, we’ve 
got to admit that she is beginning to fade—needs 
touching up a little!” 

“Nothing of the kind!” David’s gaze took in the 
beauty of her. 

“You were never so lovely, and you don’t look a 
day over twenty-five!” 

“Oh, David! Do I look young?” She softened to a 
wistfulness. 

“Of course! What difference does it make anyway? 
It’s time we got along, isn’t it? Can’t expect to stay 
young forever.” He patted her hand tenderly. “And 
neither can we forever stand here like honeymooners 
on the stairs with guests waiting below!” 

He would have led Sandra down to his friends, but 
she withdrew her hand from his, and shivering oddly, 
moved slowly down the steps, the while, David oblivious 
to the change that had come over her, called out ex¬ 
cuses to two men who smiled politely up at them as 
they came into view. 

And then Sandra Waring found herself looking into 
a pair of whimsical brown eyes, that were set rather 
deep in a finely chiseled face beneath a rippling moire 



SANDRA 


35 


of crisp brown hair. Of the other guest she was 
scarcely conscious. A swift inventory had registered 
him at once as one of the usual kind who came to talk 
trout or steel construction with David. But the man 
whose eyes were smiling friendily into hers, was ex¬ 
hilarating what had promised to be a most tiresome 
evening. At last there had come to the house of David 
a man who looked like a hero out of a book. 

“So you are Sandra Waring!” the man was saying, 
frank admiration in his face and voice. 

“When I’m not Rusty-the-Terrible!” 

“Rusty ?” 

She laughed, nodded and touched a slim hand to her 
hair. 

“Ah!” The man seemed to catch his breath. “It is 
the color of rust! But I should call it—” He stopped 
short and looked away from her fascinating eyes. 

“You would call it—” challenged Sandra. 

“Sunkist,” finished her guest without bringing his 
gaze back to her. 

“Perhaps,” offered Sandra, “you’d like to know 
about the ‘Terrible/ I’m Rusty-the-Terrible, when I 
annoy Sandra by wearing knickers and my hair in 
braids.” 

The moire head turned back to her, and at a single 
glance the brown eyes saw and appreciated the slim, 
exquisite molding of Sandra Waring’s figure. 

“Being a clergyman, you don’t like to see women in 
knickers, I suppose,” scoffed Sandra. “Though you 
are not too churchy else you couldn’t have thought of 
‘sunkist.’ ” 

The man laughed a trifle uneasily, and he would 


36 


SANDRA 


have looked away again but there was the faintest 
shadow of scorn on Sandra’s vivid lips. It held him. 

“That wasn’t bad, was it? Sunkist!” 

“It depends,” laughed Sandra, “upon whether you 
meant s-o-n or s-u-n.” 

“If I had a son-” 

“You’re father has one!” interrupted Sandra lifting 
her chin and looking back into his eyes from under 
lowered lids. 

“So he has,” replied the man coolly. “A son who is 
immune to the allure of women!” 

“Oh!” murmured Sandra catching her breath in a 
little fury. She swayed slightly toward him, her brows 
lifted quizzically, her smile skeptical. “Then you’re 
not a ‘Simon called Peter.’ My mistake! I thought 
you looked like a man who-” 

“Who knows when he has met the most beautiful 
woman on earth! Who knows when-” 

“William James Hapgood,” called David who with 
his other guest was heading toward the dining-room, 
“will you lead the way with Mrs. Waring!” 

“William James Hapgood,” echoed Sandra, her eyes 
strangely opalescent, “there’s no use offering your 
arm with such grave dignity, you’ve already shamed 
your collar. You are a Simon Called Peter!” 

The brown eyes looked unhappily down at her. 

“I—I think you’ve intoxicated me, Mrs. Waring.” 

Really! exclaimed Sandra elevating her brows. 

“I’m sorry!” 

“Now you’re spoiling it! I suppose,” Sandra’s 
slim, slippered feet came to a pause at the threshold 
of the dining room, and she lifted her face to his, mock- 





SANDRA a7 

ery twisting the corners of her mouth, “that religion 
cramps one almost as much as marriage. It’s the same 
sort of bondage, isn’t it?” She was a little startled 
herself at the words, but they seemed to strike 
dumb the man on whose arm she leaned. He searched 
her face wonderingly, and after what seemed minutes, 
he opened his lips to speak, only to be urged on by a 
jocular David. 

But at table when David and the other guest had 
got well launched on steel construction, Hapgood came 
back to her words. 

“Is marriage, then, a bondage?” he asked, striving 
to appear as but a maker of conversation. 

“Isn’t religion?” countered Sandra. 

“No,” said he firmly. 

But it keeps you from—doing a great many things 
that—you’d like to do.” 

If they’re wrong things I should not want to do 
them!” 

You mean that it is not right that you should want 
to do them. But,” she leaned toward him, and he 
glanced down to where her bare white arm touched 
the sleeve of his black coat, and a faint color came into 
his^face, “does it keep you from wanting to do them?” 

Not always,” he confessed, his gaze coming hastily 
back to his plate. 

“But it keeps you from doing them!” went on Sandra 
inexorably. “And that’s bondage!” Her clear voice 
was triumphant. “Marriage doesn’t keep men and 
women from wanting to philander. It merely forbids 
their doing it. God and marriage! They’re equally 
autocratic!” 


38 


SANDRA 


“Mrs. Waring!” Hapgood stared at her. 

“Pm irreverent ?” Sandra laughed. “Worse than 
that according to David. He says I’m positively blas¬ 
phemous. I’ve queer theories about God. But Fm not 
being polite, am I? Seeing that you’re what you are. 
I should pretend-” 

“No. I think I’ve never talked with so honest a 
woman, Mrs. Waring. . . . Please go bn.” 

Sandra looked across the table at David and his 
friend and wondered vaguely how many buildings they 
had constructed between the, soup and the fish, then 
she turned her head and gazed for a long silent mo¬ 
ment into the questioning brown eyes of the man who 
preached the Word of God. 

“I think I’d rather not,” she demurred thoughtfully. 
“You’re David’s friend and guest.” 

William James Hapgood found himself readjusting 
his ideas about her. There was no mistaking the look 
in those strange jade eyes. No misunderstanding the 
tenderness with which she spoke his friend’s name. 

“You believe in God?” he persisted, his gaze holding 
helplessly to the white face so fascinatingly illumined 
by its bold red streak and two spots of green candes¬ 
cence. 

“The Christian God?” asked Sandra lifting the 
shoulder nearest him in a manner that said: “Oh, well, 
if we must discuss the subject!” 

“Yes.” 

“No!” said Sandra fiercely, her shapely head rear¬ 
ing defiantly on its slender throat. 

Hapgood stared. It was as if he had come too near 
the retreat of a leopardess. 

“But why not?” he inquired, touching his napkin to 



SANDRA 39 

his lips and wondering dully why they felt stiff and 
dry. 

Sandra’s filmily clad figure relaxed. She looked at 
the clergyman out of the corners of her eyes, her lids 
lowered. 

“Because,” she replied, “I refuse to believe that a 
Creator such as the personal God addressed by Chris¬ 
tians as ‘Our Father,’ could make such a fiasco of His 
creations.” 

“But Christianity is-” 

“Fetishism! Shintoism!” 

Hapgood’s face went a little white. 

“I can’t allow you to say these things, Mrs. Waring. 
Will you permit me to help you not to think them?” 

Sandra laughed indolently. 

“You’d like to make me more vain?” 

“Vain? What can vanity have to do with it?” 

“Oh!” She laughed again musingly. “I know that 
I am beautiful. I know that I am clever. How im¬ 
possible it might make me if I were to come to be¬ 
lieve that I am also ‘made in God’s image.’ ” 

David is right. You are blasphemous.” 

“According to your perspective, Mr. Simon-Called- 
Peter . According to mine I am modest—more modest 
than you who look calmly out upon the world with an 
assured thought that God is thus and so, and the 
origin and purpose of the Universe is such and such.” 

“And why should I not? I have the Bible and it_” 

“Why?” Again Sandra laughed half-jeeringly. 
“Because it is a pleasant thing to believe, and it is so 
full of promise.” 

“Yet you -” 

Once more she interrupted him. 




40 


SANDRA 


“Yet I—” She mused a moment smilingly, her 
head bent forward, a long tapering finger moving a 
pink rose petal about in her finger bowl as if it were 
a chess-figure. Suddenly she looked up, and again 
Hapgood found himself readjusting his characteriza¬ 
tion of her. At this moment she was distinctly another 
woman—a weirdly intelligent woman who looked past 
his scholarships into depths which he had never 
sounded. 

“It isn’t polite to tell you these things,” she was 
saying softly, “but I’ve always been halted by the 
enormity of the things you God-worshipping people 
ask me to believe. I could never quite imagine an 
atomic individual like myself looking up past the stars 
at night and suavely announcing: ‘All this is now 
clear to me. I know who made it and why. Further¬ 
more, Fie and I are friends.’ Whenever I have tried 
to attain this attitude I have had to laugh at myself.” 

“I see.” The clergyman wrenched his gaze from 
hers with the feeling that all the instincts and train¬ 
ings of his life were in jeopardy. He was suddenly 
possessed of the prescience that he and this damnably 
fascinating woman would not be able to escape the com¬ 
pelling gravity of the sex affinity which undeniably 
existed between them, and that one of them would go 
down under the spiritual convictions of the other. 

He made an effort to throw off the feeling that his 
faith was in danger—that his friendship for David 
Waring was being inexplicably menaced—and that his 
body, whether it willed it or not, was uncomfortably 
conscious of the physical being whose bare arm was 
warm against his. . . . 


CHAPTER IV 


T O believe in the Christian God,” went on Sandra 
smoothly, quite as if she were referring to a 
beautiful though exaggerated character in 
fiction, “is to believe in a certain explanation of ex¬ 
istence and of all the unknowable mysteries of origin 
and infinity. There are some things”—she paused to 
light a cigarette—“I am content not to know.” 

She puffed at the cigarette in silence for a moment. 
Then: 

“In the first place, because I believe they are un¬ 
knowable; in the second place, because I do not be¬ 
lieve that it is of any great importance in this life 
whether we know them or not.” 

She took the cigarette from her mouth and offered it 
to him without turning her face toward him. She was 
surveying a sinuous smoke ring thoughtfully. 

The Reverend William James Hapgood took the 
cigarette with a word of thanks and for an instant 
he looked down at it with a faint frown of indecision. 
He would so much have preferred to light his own 
cigarette. He was accustomed to do that. He was 
not accustomed to receiving from the warm mouth of 
a Cleopatra sort of creature, a bit of tobacco rolled 
in thin white paper upon which there remained the red 
imprint of painted lips. He was not accustomed to 
receive anything at all from the warm mouth of any 
woman. 


41 


42 SANDRA 

“Afraid?” laughed Sandra laconically, without look¬ 
ing round, her half-closed eyes still gazing pensively at 
the dissolving smoke ring. 

Hapgood started. He felt a hot flush stain his 
cheeks. He squared his jaws and lifted his fine head 
proudly. 

“Yes,” he said simply. 

“Don’t be. I’m harmless. I’ve lured and felt the 
lure of a thousand men, and though innately I am a 
voluptuary—a high priestess of sex freedom, I ve per¬ 
haps no more shamed my marriage vows than you have 
shamed those of your church. Bondage, you see.” 

The ecclesiastic’s analysis of her underwent another 
change. He studied her perfect profile appreciatively. 

“You’re a very beautiful priestess,” he remarked in 
an attempt to defy his shyness of her. “It’s a pity 
you’re not an exponent of something finer than duty¬ 
free flesh pots.” 

“I wonder,” doubted Sandra. She lighted another 
cigarette and leaned lazily back in her chair. “Y our 
light’s going out,” she commented dryly. Then medi¬ 
tatively: “I think I’m a sort of Parsee. I can’t bear 
to see a fire die out.” 

“Even the fire of lust?” reproached Hapgood boldly. 

“Even the fire of lust!” repeated Sandra Waring, 
and the words left her lips parted in a kind of sug¬ 
gestive breathlessness, and once more her eyes were 
luminous. 

“We’re pursuing a dangerous path, Mrs. Waring. 
Can’t we talk about—the country, your golf links, or 
—or something equally diverting?” 

Sandra’s carefully penciled brows lifted. 


SANDRA 43 

“I thought you might think it your duty to try to 
save my soul! Can it be that you give up so easily?” 

“I do think it my duty,” answered the clergyman em- 
barrassedly, “but I’m afraid that in trying to—to save 
yours, I should—lose my own.” 

“And of course one must always think first of one¬ 
self,” flashed Sandra Waring gently derisive. 

“You’re entirely misnamed, Mrs. Waring You 
should be called—as I shall call you, Sandra-the- 
Heartless.” 

“How lovely! And you, Doctor William James 
Hapgood, I shall call Jimsy-Afraid-of-Me! But your 
cigarette! It’s going out!” 

Hapgood lifted the cigarette which bore the im~ 
piint of her painted lips, and with a mocking bow and 
a nonchalant flourish, put it between his own lips. 
Instantly he wished that he had had the courage to 
fling it from him. Distinctly he felt the touch of her 
mouth against his, and he was torn between shame 
and the mad desire to snatch her up in his arms there 
and then. 

You re the most damnably desirable woman I have 
ever been cursed with meeting!” he said huskily, throw¬ 
ing the cigarette into his fingerbowl. 

“Careful!” admonished Sandra. “If you don’t re¬ 
member David, I shall have to name you Judas-Called- 
Jimsy!” And she looked tenderly across the table to 
David, and meeting David’s gaze, smiled a little in¬ 
timate smile and rose from the table. 

“Dick and I have been discussing that new Park 
Avenue hotel, Rusty,” said David as they made their 
way out to the big living room. “And Dick wagers a 


44 


SANDRA 


set of decoys that there’ll be a brick facing. He hasn’t 
seen the plans and neither have I. We’ve not even seen 
a newspaper print of the perspective. But I’m posi¬ 
tive they’ll use stone. Why, you yourself, Rusty, know 
that Blanchard and Blanchard employ a style of archi¬ 
tecture that has nothing in common with brick!” 

“Of course, I know it, David boy! And you’ve as 
good as won your decoys!” returned Sandra gayly. 

“You see, Dick!” David slapped his friend genially 
on the back, as the two of them moved off toward a cor¬ 
ner in which stood two deep, over-stuffed chairs 
with a smoking stand between. “I wm the decoys! 
And that reminds me, old sport, are you coming down 
for the duck season? Rusty and I will corner the 
feathers on the Island’s North Shore this year. Bought 
Rusty a new rifle and you ought to see her-” 

The Reverend William James Hapgood frowned back 
into the green eyes that were lifted amusedly to his. 

“So you bag game as well as men!” he observed dis¬ 
approvingly. 

They had paused near the doors leading to the 
veranda, Sandra a little in front of him, her head 
turned, her chin lifted that she might look at him across 
her bare shoulder. 

“Oh, yes! Though frankly, it’s not nearly so ex¬ 
citing.” 

She looked out through the screen doors into the 
night. 

“Nor,” she resumed after a moment, “is brick!” 

Hapgood was puzzled. Then he recalled David and 
Dick and their construction wager. He realized that 
he must think fast to keep up with this strange woman. 



SANDRA 


45 


She spoke a new language. Flitted along the crests 
of thoughts, never wading, never climbing, never grop- 
ing. And though her ideas were depressing enough, 
her manner of serving them was deliciously intriguing. 

“Shall we go out?” she invited, opening the doors 
even as she spoke, and stepping out upon the veranda. 

Hapgood followed her reluctantly and with some 
misgivings. But he was to learn how little he had come 
to understand her. 

She stood a little way from him and leaning against 
a pillar, looked up at the stars. 

Without conscious volition he drew nearer. A drap¬ 
ing of her chiffons blew caressingly against one of his 
hands. The subtle perfume of her hair seduced his 
poise. From the house next door through the soft 
twanging of a string instrument, came the persuasive 
strains of a Hawaiian love song. 

“If it were not for David,” she said, “I’d solve some 
of the mysteries of the world, and the mystery of the 
stars could take care of itself. But David needs me.” 

Hapgood drew away from her, instantly in posses¬ 
sion of his truant senses. It was as if she had felt the 
racing of the blood in his veins, heard the hammering 
of his pulses! 

“You want to go exploring!” He tried to laugh. 
“And what are the mysteries you would solve, Mrs. 
Waring?” 

She turned her back to the pillar and leaned her 
head with its riotous tangle of heaped-up curls, 
against it. 

“I want to explore the hearts of men,” she said 
slowly. “And I want to solve the intricacies of all 


46 


SANDRA 


human emotion. I want adventure. I want danger.” 
Her clear voice warmed to a throatiness. “I want to 
feast upon love. I want to have thrills. I want to 
experience a great passion.” 

“What a strange woman you are!” exclaimed Hap- 
good, shocked anew. 

“You are mistaken, Doctor Jimsy. I am not in the 
least strange—not in the least unlike many women.” 

“Rut you said-” 

“And saying it made the only real difference be¬ 
tween them and me. The others do not say it.” 

“You cannot mean that women—other women 


“As discontented—as amorous—as hungry for ro¬ 
mance as am I! But of course! Look at them the 
next time you walk down Fifth Avenue! Look at the 
droop of their lips—the unsatisfied something in their 
eyes! It is only, my dear Man-of-God, that they are 
not as recklessly candid as am I. Were you a priest of 
the Catholic Church you would know that I belong to a 
class—a very common class. A class composed of the 
type of woman who cannot stand monotony—not even 
the monotony of love and—home.” 

She sighed. Then almost at once she laughed clear 
and sweet as a silver flute. 

“Don’t look aghast! Please! You’re probably 
thinking that I’m in the habit of confessing my weak¬ 
nesses to all men with whom I come in contact.” She 
shook her lovely head slowly, still smiling at him with 
her eyes. “I’ve never confessed them before. I think 
I never perfectly understood them until to-night. Just 
felt what many married women feel—a vague sense of 




SANDRA 47 

being some way cheated. But men—the men we know, 
David and I-” 


“Yes the men you know?” interrupted Hapgood a 
little too hurriedly. 

Always interest me strangely. Without being in the 
least infatuated with any one of them, I find myself 
imagining them as lovers. And yet, I think I couldn’t 
bear physical contact with any man we know, ex¬ 
cept- 

“Yes?” Hapgood bent toward her—an odd tight¬ 
ening of the muscles in his throat. 

Except perhaps a sardonic satellite who insists 
upon remaining in the same orbit with me in spite of 
my assumed indifference.” 


David’s friend looked steadily into the quicksands of 
the cool eyes that belonged to David’s wife, and though 
back in some remote region of his mind there was a 
dully disturbing confusion of shame and fear, he could 
not help wanting this strangely fascinating creature, 
and wanting her to want no other man. 

“What is he like—this satellite?” he asked, his nice 
brown eyes no longer whimsical. 

“Like a satyr—a mocking satyr,” mused Sandra with 
a faint grimace. “I’m afraid of him just as you are 
afraid of me. Oh, don’t try to stop me!” she went on 
quietly. “You see, I understand. Funny, isn’t it, how 
I get all your little mental vibrations! Well,” again 
she laughed, “that is the way he reads me. He knows 
that I’m afraid of the physical attraction he has for 
me, just as I know that you are afraid of—of the sex 
appeal I—have for you.” 


A little color swept into her white cheeks, and Hap- 


48 


SANDRA 


good looking at her as she stood there leaning against 
the huge pillar, the soft glow of light streaming through 
the doors haloing her, thought he had never seen any 
other living being so seductively beautiful. He bent 
his face close to hers. His eyes were burning and there 
was a queer rushing sound in his ears. 

“Sandra!” he whispered. “He can’t have you 1 
Ever! He can’t have you!” 

“No,” reminded Sandra Waring imperturbably, 
turning to look once more at the stars. “No more than 
I can have you. The laws of man pronounce me one 
with David. The laws of your God pronounce you 
one with the Church! Once more I prove to you that 
we—are in bondage!” 

William James Hapgood was instantly conscious of 
the shame and fear that had been trying to control 
him. Sandra Waring had given back to him his bal¬ 
ance. Her words so coolly spoken, so hot with mean¬ 
ing, had saved him from—himself! 

“Thank you!” he said humbly. 

“Don’t be meek,” admonished Sandra, seating her¬ 
self languidly on a cushioned marble bench and smiling 
enigmatically up at him. “You forget that you are a 
priest and I a scoffer.” 

He shook his head deploringly. 

“You’ve plumbed my shallows, Mrs. Waring, with¬ 
out allowing me to sound your depths.” 

“How cunning of me!” She was gently sarcastic. 

Her Mona Lisa smile baffled and some way troubled 
him. 

“You are a problem in—profanity!” he ventured a 
trifle maliciously. 


SANDRA 49 

“You flatter me!” Her eyes widened with ironic 
seriousness. 

Suddenly she laughed, silkenly, satirically. 

The Prelate and the Sphinx!” she exclaimed. Then: 
“What a title for a movie!” 

Hapgood smiled at his own discomfiture and began 
to speak in a low, earnest tone. 

“You are the wife of my friend, Mrs. Waring, and I 
am his guest. I have forfeited the right to be here in 
his house. I hope that I may be spared all taunting 
memories of to-night, and that I may —never see you 
again. If it were not for David-” 

But even as he spoke, he passed out of the arena of 
her thoughts a defeated gladiator, and the wild beasts 
of her imagination ran this way and that—impatient 
in their lust, while Sandra, the Vestal Virgin, sat gazing 
out into the night, her slim thumbs motionless. 

Later upstairs in her room she talked with David 
about his friend the Churchman, and David leaning his 
tall, loose-jointed body against the wall, watched her 
vivid face anxiously and wondered whether what she 
was saying were tribute or criticism. He floundered 
helplessly in the swirling eddy of her spoken thoughts. 

“Of course he travels the straight path! What sort 
of path would you expect him to travel, Rusty?” 

“Oh,” murmured Sandra, “I think he might live up 
to his eyes! They’re anything but orthodox, David. 
Pm sure if he were true to them he’d walk in Elysian 
fields and endure no denial of Desire.” 

“But the straight path has its rewards. And 
William James-” 


“Billy-Jim! Simon-Called-Peter!” soliloquized San- 




50 


SANDRA 


dra. “And I, David boy, I love a winding road,” she 
went on pensively, thrusting out a foot from which she 
had just drawn a cob-webby silk stocking, and looking 
down with dreamy approval at the slim, shapely pink 
toes. “It is apt to be rich in unexpected corners! I 
love corners!” She looked up confidentially. “It’s 
always a bit exciting to approach one, not in the least 
knowing what one may meet when one has made the 
turn.” 

“The unexpected! Corners !” exclaimed David, com¬ 
ing over to where she sat, and laughing down at her 
with lazy indulgence. 

“Yes,” replied Sandra, turning her head to smile back 
at him. “That’s the reason I’ve never liked walking 
out on piers. Remember that Easter Day in Atlantic 
City, David, when you couldn’t understand why I 
didn’t enjoy a walk on the pier that jutted out into 
the ocean?” 

“Perfectly!” 

David Waring took a ragged, unlighted cigar from 
his mouth, gazed at it reminiscently and tossed it into 
a waste basket. 

“Well,” explained Sandra, drawing a red shell pin 
from the red rust of her hair, “you know why—now. 
There was no road beyond! I could only walk out— 
turn around and walk back.” 

“But what else-” 

“Oh!” she broke in, “I don’t like turning back— 
ever! I must have a road that goes on and on—with 
always new scenes. I don’t believe,” her voice became 
softly introspective, “that I could turn back. If by 
mistake I should choose a—a pier, for instance,” she 



SANDRA 


51 


confided half to herself, “I’d have to—to go off the end 
of it into oblivion! I couldn’t turn round and— 
come back!” 

David’s face had puckered into a series of frowns in 
his effort to keep mental pace with her. He gave up 
now with a good-natured grin. 

“If ever y°u jump off a pier, Rusty, I’ll jump off 
after you,” he promised, stooping to kiss his favorite 
curl, a tiny glistening lock that nestled on her neck 
just behind one small delicately-shaped ear. 

I wonder!” mused Sandra, a nameless premonition 
chilling her heart, “I wonder!” 

And while Sandra Waring shivered under the spell 
of some vague prescience, David Waring’s Rusty 
reached up a hand and pressed David’s head close- 
holding his lips captive against her warm neck. 


CHAPTER V 


F RIDAY morning was cloudless. Never, thought 
David as he came into the breakfast room 
whistling tunelessly, had there been such sincere 
promise of a perfect day, and never had Rusty and he 
had a more glorious time than they should have on this 
day that was just in the budding. 

He had not heard Rusty at her bath—what a rite 
she made of her tubbing and perfume spraying!—and 
it was after seven when he had passed her door on his 
way downstairs. He ought to send that Fifi person 
to get her up. They had danced too much at the Club 
last night—at least, Rusty had! She and Stephen had 
been insatiable. What a pair they had made floating 
through the crowd! He’d half envied Stephen Win¬ 
slow his Mephistophelian grace. Funny thing, how he 
—David—always stepped on Sandra’s swift little feet! 

Whereas this Stephen- 

Now where on earth were those old sneakers! They 
should be here with the other things! Seemed like he 
could never keep together the yawl stuff that he brought 
ashore for laundering or repairs. 

Sandra, pausing in the door, inspected the sunny 
room and its muttering occupant with a curious sense 
of guilt. She did not in the least want to go on this 
sail to-day, and though she had gone with David on 
one or two previous jaunts or sails when she had not in 
the least wanted to go, her present disinclination dis- 

52 



SANDRA 


53 

turbed her because she understood it now that she was 
coming at last to understand herself. 

David was examining the contents of a duffle bag 
which he had set upon one end of the parrot-green 
breakfast table, his great head bent forward between 
his two half-stooping shoulders, his lips compressed 
with boyish impatience, his wide hands fumbling. 

“And she calls this a handkerchief!” he ejaculated 
suddenly, drawing forth an eight inch square of linen 
the shade of a tangerine, and grinning with tender de¬ 
preciation. “Always there’s something of Sandra’s 
getting mixed up with our things—Rusty’s and mine. 
Smells like”—he slid the handkerchief slyly across his 
lips—“that wildrose perfume she uses!” 

It isn’t wildrose, David,” laughed Sandra, coming 
into the room and blowing a kiss to him from the ends 
of her fingers as she took her place at the table. “It’s 
Vessence du jpeche .” 

“Hullo!” boomed David joyfully. “Great day, 
Rusty! I’ll tell the world we’re going to have one per- 
feet week-end!” 

“What is it that you can’t find this time, David-the- 
careless ?” Sandra glanced meaningly at the tumbled 
contents of the duffle bag. 

“Those old white shoes that I brought ashore,” in¬ 
formed David, beginning again to fumble. 

“Well,” smiled Sandra, “you might come and eat 
your breakfast and finish your search later. The toast 
is getting cold. When did Fifi bring it out?” 

“Just before you came in. Must have heard you 
on the stairs. Great little anticipator—Fifi!” He 
came around the table and sat down near her. 


54 


SANDRA 


“Here’s jour handkerchief,” he said, handing to her 
the square of tangerine-colored linen. He unfolded 
his napkin and helped himself to bacon. “What did 
you say Sandra calls that perfume she’s using?” 

“ L’essence du peche” repeated Sandra. 

“Which means in plain New York English?” inquired 
David, working at the coffee percolator. 

“Essence of Sin,” returned Sandra. 

“What a name for a perfume! It took a Frenchman 
to think of that. No regular he man could have in¬ 
vented such a phrase,” snorted David. 

“No?” 

“No.” 

“I don’t know just what might be your definition of 
a he man, David, but an aesthete may concoct exquisite 
perfumes and give them fitting names without being a 
hiker, a sailor, a golfer or a hunter.” 

David looked up from his coffee with a start. This 
was Sandra who spoke. Sandra who was not thinking 
of the sail to Mont auk. Sandra who scurried past him 
with thrusts which he could not parry. 

“Guess he could, at that!” he conceded. 

“And now about those rubber-soled sneakers!” Once 
more it was Rusty who spoke. “I’ll look for them 
while you run across to the Stanley’s and ask Mate if 
she’s ready.” 

“Mate!” 

Rusty laughed, delighted at the effect of her little 
surprise, but into her eyes came Sandra—calculating 
and sardonic. 

“She has been dying to go off with us on one of our 
week-ends,” she explained hurriedly, “and when she 


SANDRA 


55 

learned about our plans for this trip—the long day 
under a wide-spread sail and a night at anchor near 
a lighthouse she was so wistful, I had to invite her. 
I knew you’d like to have her. After all, I do tire a 
bit easier than once I did, and she’ll help such a lot 
when I shall be—all in! You—you’ll like having her 
along, won t you, David?” The green eyes were velvet 
moss now. 

Why, of course!” agreed David, his own eyes 
sparkling. “It’ll be ripping! Maybe Eve—” his face 
clouded. “Did you ask her mother?” 

Sandra nodded. 

“You ought to know Eve by this time. She’s abso¬ 
lutely plastic in the hands of those two young savages.” 

“Yes, naturally,” murmured David absently. He 
glanced at his watch and got up from the table, barely 
avoiding upsetting the percolator. “I’ll go see about 
Mate right away. Hope you find the sneakers.” 

Sandra watched him thoughtfully as he shambled 
toward the door, and when he had passed into the living- 
room, she still sat, rigid as a statue, listening to his 
muffled footsteps. The screen doors slammed. The 
house was suddenly quiet as the house of a lonely mother 
who has just lost her beloved little boy. There were 
ghost-echoes of his hurrying feet and shrill, tuneless 
whistling, and—Sandra looking across the table at 
the disordered duffle bag, fancied that here was the 
worn little drum and the brave Indian trappings of 
the little boy she would know no more. 

She sighed tremulously. Then once again a sense 
of shame swept through her. How absurd she was! 
Youth! Of course, he liked youth! But his love was 


56 SANDRA 

hers. Would always be hers! And Mate was only a 
child. 

She stood up and went around to the duffle bag. 
What a mess he had made of the things. Dear old 
David! Dear little boy with his Indian trappings ! 

She picked up a tangle of soiled string and holding 
it gingerly between thumb and forefinger, looked at it 
with a little convulsive laugh. 

No. She had been mistaken. Never could she aban¬ 
don this little boy who needed her. This David who 
loved her! And never would he find—comfort and com¬ 
panionship—elsewhere! Marriage with Davids was a 
sort of eternal pregnancy. Deliverance came to the 
mother with child, and after the deliverance the child 
grew up to an independence which left the mother free. 
But wife-mothers carried their Davids always—unless 
—unless labor pains aborted them in the—divorce 
courts. 

She shrank uneasily from the thought of such deliv¬ 
erance. An actual fright awed her. She dropped the 
tangle of soiled string from her trembling fingers and 
with an impulse of tenderness and contrition, bent over 
and touched a cheek to a wrinkled gray flannel shirt. 
Then she lifted her head with a swift movement. A 
jubilant shout, followed by a shrill girlish giggle, had 
come to her ear from the house next door. And into 
the long, heavily-fringed eyes flared a strange light as 
of a wanton hope—a vagrant , indefinite hope , though 
the delicately curved lips were trembling with hurt. 

“It’s the beginning of a great day for your little 
girl,” Sandra Waring remarked an hour later as she 
stood with Eve Stanley on the Stanley veranda, wait- 


SANDRA 


57 


ing for Mate and her brother to finish a heated argu¬ 
ment in which David was endeavoring to act as arbiter. 

Plump, blue-eyed, dimply-cheeked Eve Stanley nod¬ 
ded her carelessly-coiiTed yellow head happily. 

“I don’t know how I can thank you, Sandra. It 
was splendid of you to ask her. She’s such a wild 
little animal! I think she scarcely slept last night, and 
she’s been up since daylight.” 

“Oh,” laughed Sandra, flying a gay banner above 
the strange heaviness of her inconsistent heart, “she’ll 
love it! She’ll not be disappointed. She’ll learn to 
handle the tiller, and David will be her captain. It’s 
rather bad we didn’t invite Robert.” 

“Robert!” Eve Stanley’s mother-eyes twinkled* “On 
a yawl! Mercy! He’s much too sophisticated for 
that. He talks about hydroplanes! You should see 
him smoking his pipe after dinner, Sandra. He’s really 
quite blase. Makes Peter look like an ever-so-humble 
clerk. I think,” her voice subdued to a gurgling whis¬ 
per, “Peter is a little afraid of this all-of-a-sudden 
grown-up son of ours. You know how timid Peter is.” 

“Yes.” Sandra visualized Peter Stanley—medium 
height, medium build, medium voiced, medium income. 
“Peter’s a sort of New England Sunday morning and 
Robert’s a Broadway midnight.” 

“And Mate?” asked Mrs. Stanley amusedly. 

“Mate’s a sky-rocketing mid-day Fourth of July!” 

Eve Stanley’s blue eyes turned with tender apprecia¬ 
tion to her two quarreling offsprings. 

“I just guess,” Mate was saying emphatically, “that 
I sha’n’t be any more afraid of storms than you would 
be, And I guess-” 



58 


SANDRA 


“If you’re hit by a squall,” interrupted Robert know¬ 
ingly, “you’ll not have time to think about being afraid. 
Of course, Mr. Waring’s yawl is perfectly sea-worthy 
and Mr. Waring no doubt knows how to handle her in 
bad weather, but a squall is-” 

“He’s studied squallology, Mr. David! I expect he 
knows most squalls by their first names. Just to look 
at him you wouldn’t know he was so smart even if he 
is related to me—in a way! Why I expect he-” 

“Please, Mr. Waring, don’t pay any attention to 
Mate. She’s quite off her head this morning,” drawled 
Robert apologetically. 

“I’ve not been on it! I’ve not been on it! I’ve 
not been on it! So how can I be off it!” 

“Mother!” called Robert with his usual air of greatly 
tried patience. “Can’t you make your child better 
mannered! Perhaps if you could prevail upon her to 
talk less—be less petulant—the world mightn’t guess 
how ill-bred she is.” 

“But you did goad her, Rob,” put in David, before 
Eve could speak. 

“Goad?” Robert was painfully surprised. 

“That’s what he said, Mister Stanley. Goad! And 
I’d rather be a goad than a toad, toad, toad! Oh, 
I’d rather be a goad than a toad-” 

“Really, Mate! Is it possible that you think you 
can make a noun out of a verb!” 

Mate Stanley’s tweed-knickered little figure danced 
up and down tauntingly. 

“It’s just as possible as for you to think that you 
can make music out of a uke!” 

“Didn’t father tell you to stop calling it ‘a uke’?” 





SANDRA 


59 

“And didn’t he tell you that when you played it, it 
sounded like a wail from the lost soul of a departed 
influenza germ?” 

That,” ventured David, “sounds like Don Marquis. 
Probably your father borrowed it from him.” 

“Probelly!” conceded Mate absently. “And didn’t 
he tell you when you brought home that saxo- 
phome-” 

“Saxop hone!" 

“Saxophone—that he thought he hated the uke, but 
after all, he guessed maybe he liked it! Didn’t he?” 

“Children! Mate! Robert!” Eve Stanley came in 
between the two glowering young faces with a little 
disciplinary gesture. 

“Well, Mate said-” 

“I didn’t! Really, mother dear, I didn’t. You can 
ask Mr. David!” 

“Eve and her warriors!” mused Sandra looking on 
with a faint smile. “Eve and her bondage!” 

“I wonder,” remarked Eve Stanley looking appre¬ 
ciatively at Sandra as they strolled off in the wake of 
David and the two young Stanleys, toward the wharf 
that snuggled against the shore at the foot of the 
street, “if you know how stunning you look in that 
crisp linen skirt and soft white sweater!” 

“It’s my business to know!” laughed Sandra. 

“Clothes are important! Though I hadn’t guessed 
how important until Mate began to make them her 
heart’s interest.” 

Sandra tilted her head and inspected Eve from be¬ 
neath the brim of her stitched linen hat. 

“I think you understood their value before—you 




60 


SANDRA 


married Peter. After marriage you went the way of 
most married feminine flesh. You felt, at least sub¬ 
consciously, that you had won your prize and that the 
contest was over.” 

“Contest?” 

“All life is a contest!” averred Sandra. “And it 
isn’t enough to win—you must see to it that you re¬ 
main the winner! No woman can afford to relax in her 
effort to charm. Competition never becomes less keen. 
In fact, it grows sharper as the woman grows older.” 

“But clothes-” 

“Clothes can make a plain woman beautiful! They 
can win man’s love and hold it! They can make a 
jury free a woman who is guilty of murder!” 

“Why Sandra! Men pay small attention to women’s 
clothes. Peter couldn’t describe a single frock in my 
wardrobe!” 

“The details of it—no.” Sandra smiled tolerantly. 
“But though he doesn’t know it, he is susceptible to 
the ensemble. Apparently you’ve no idea, Eve, what a 
frock or a hat can express! What effect a woman can 
produce with her trappings! A harlot dressed as a 
nun would look like a saint, and sight of her black- 
robed figure would fill men’s hearts with reverence. A 
nun in the tawdry costume of a burlesque dancer would 
become the target for coarse jests. It’s just a matter 
of psychology.” 

“I can’t believe that men are so simple!” argued Eve 
a trifle uneasily. 

“That’s because you’re mid-Victorian!” 

“But that men—great, strong, brilliant men—can be 
influenced by a hat, or a dress!” 



SANDRA 61 

% 

“A clever woman can influence a man even in the 
matter of his own appearance. There’s no limit to our 
power, Eve, if we only learn to use it.” 

Eve laughed. 

“I’d like to see any woman on earth make my Peter 
like evening clothes!” She paused under the shade 
of a maple tree that grew at the edge of the narrow 
flagstone walk, and lifted her merry blue eyes to San¬ 
dra’s face. “Why, I’ve only to mention a formal affair 
to Peter to make him look like a martyr!” 

Sandra glanced back at the widespreading Stanley 
cottage and shook her head. Then her gaze traveled 
down the road to where a carelessly-dressed David 
was lumbering along between a youth in white flan¬ 
nels and a girl in tweed knickers. Again she shook 
her head. 

“Du Barry would have made your Peter and my 
David scorn soft collars,” she said seriously* “She 
would have made them uneasily conscious of their 
clothes.” 

“Why, Sandra!” Eve was frankly amused. . . . “You 
talk as if you had known Du Barry! Poor thing!’* 

“Perhaps I did know her! Perhaps even I am she 
reincarnated! It’s more entertaining to believe in rein¬ 
carnation than it is to believe in some other kinds of 
theological rubbish that we’re taught. As for Du 
Barry—she was never a ‘poor thing’! She was de¬ 
terminedly young and lovely, defiantly spirited even to 
the steps of the guillotine!” 

Eve lifted her two hands in mock horror. 

“You’ve been to a movie,” she accused shaking her 
bare blond head disapprovingly. 


62 


SANDRA 


“Yes,” admitted Sandra with a challenging smile, as 
she waved her hand to David who was calling to her 
from the wharf. “I don’t often go,” she began to move 
off toward the wharf, “but when I heard that Du Barry 
was to be seen in a picture theatre on Broadway, 
I motored into the city for a matinee. I had to 
see her!” 

“How weird you are!” exclaimed Eve fitting her step 
to Sandra’s. 

“And how true to type you are!” returned Sandra 
with a teasing grimace. “Now, I’m sure you go to 
see motion pictures quite regularly, but you—” she hes¬ 
itated and looked round at her friend thoughtfully-— 
“you wouldn’t care to see Du Barry or Helen of 
Troy, would you, Eve?” 

Eve shook her head slowly, her face sobering. Some¬ 
thing in Sandra’s gaze made her feel strangely small 
and commonplace. 

“No,” she replied ruefully, though she knew of no 
reason why she should be rueful. “I would not be the 
least bit interested in either of those pictures. Those 
vamp things-” 

“I know!” Sandra was smiling her inscrutable smile. 
“You prefer a ‘Way Down East’ sort of confection.” 

Eve nodded and at once wondered why she should 
feel ashamed of the acknowledgment. Always she had 
been no little proud of the fact that the ‘vulgar’ things 
of life offended her. 

She came slowly to a stop, looking up at Sandra 
questioningly. But Sandra was not waiting for ques¬ 
tions. She was leaning slightly forward, her smile gone, 
her face tense. 



SANDRA 


63 


“That’s it! You ask life to supply you with noth¬ 
ing harder to digest than marshmallows! Soft, senti¬ 
mentalized, lusterless marshmallows! Eve,” one of her 
long, colorless hands laid itself on Eve’s warm round 
arm, “are you satisfied with the insipid, the tasteless! 
Are you never hungry for the sharp flavor of adven¬ 
ture? Never thirsty for the bubbling wine of human 
passions?” 

“Why I-” 

“Will you be content to go on to the end, like this?'* 
The long colorless hand made an impatient gesture that 
indicated the Stanley house a block and a half behind 
them, and the shaded walk down which they had just 
come. 

Eve stared at the lovely face beneath the stitched 
linen hat, her brows puckering. 

“With Peter and the Peterkins?” she inquired won¬ 
dering! y. “Why, of course! For what more could I 
ask?” 

Sandra was staring now. 

“You are content with this—this family life! This 
mother-martyrdom!” 

“To be a mother, Sandra, is to be-” 

Sandra cut in scathingly. 

“A cow can be a mother!” 

“Sandra!” 

“I’m sorry!” Sandra’s rigid figure relaxed—her 
expression softened. 

“You mustn’t mind me, Eve. Sometimes I am half 
mad. If you can be patient and generous with me at 
such times, and like me a little at the times when-” 

“You’re wonderful!” protested Eve warmly, sliding 





64 


SANDRA 


a forgiving arm shyly round the white-sweatered 
waist. “Though I don’t always know your language. 
Perhaps, Sandra, you really are reincarnated.” She 
laughed timidly. “And you’ve brought down with you 
through the ages this strange tongue that I cannot 
understand.” 

“Don’t try to understand it, dear. Be glad that you 
cannot comprehend that about which I have been talk¬ 
ing—be glad that you are immune to the virus of its 
meaning. It’s like an insidious, deadly drug and once 
a woman is inoculated with it, there is no saving her 
from it. Like a drug addict, she may know her danger, 
and like him, defy quarantine.” 

“There you go again!” cried Eve, squeezing the 
slim waist affectionately. “I haven’t the faintest idea 
as to what you are talking about. Are you telling me 
that it’s stupid of me to be so purringly contented?” 

“Stupid, yes! But safe, Eve! You’re in port. 
You’re made fast to a dock, so there’s not even the 
danger of your dragging anchor.” 

Sandra Waring drew away from the encircling arm, 
reached down and pressed Eve’s warm fingers, then 
with another wave to the insistently calling David, hur¬ 
ried forward without seeming to hurry. 

Eve walking fast to keep up with her, marveled at 
the grace and smoothness of her stepf\There was an 
indescribable indolence even in her haste. It was as 
if she were floating without effort or ,olition. 

“She’s curiously magnificent!” thought Eve rather 
awesomely. “She’s splendid in the same way that a 
vivid flash of lightning is splendid, and I think she— 
frightens me almost as much!” 


CHAPTER VI 


T HE dinghy was fastened aft the impatient Bac¬ 
chante, and under David’s maneuvering the 
sails began to fill. With Sandra Waring at the 
tiller and Maitland Stanley nestling wide-eyed at her 
side, the yawl slid like a shark-fin through the blue 
waters of Long Island Sound, leaving Eve Stanley and 
her son to shrink to mere specks on the wharf that gated 
the foot of the Waring-Stanley street. Then David was 
at the tiller and Mate, flushed with excitement, was snug¬ 
gled close, her hand under David’s instructive fingers, 
while Sandra lay stretched out at full length on a strip 
of white canvas which she had spread along the deck. 

“Why!” cried Mate breathlessly, “it’s simple! Just 
like guiding a horse. Only,” she turned her piquant 
face to David and smiled sunnily, “you sit farther back 
in the saddle, and the reins have a handle.” 

David laughed uproariously. 

“Hear what Mate said, Rusty?” he called above the 
creaking of the tackle. 

Sandra moved her head lazily, but under her lan¬ 
guid exterior an unfamiliar emotion was racing, surg¬ 
ing, foaming. 

“You—you ddh’t mind teaching her, do you David?” 
she called back solicitously. “I’ll finish the lesson if 
you’re tired.” 

“Tired!” boomed David. “Mind teaching her! Say! 
I can’t think when I’ve had such a good time. Regular 


66 


SANDRA 


little sport, she is, Rusty! Isn’t the least bit fright¬ 
ened! Remember how frightened you were the first 
time I brought you out for a sail? Remember, Rusty?” 

“As if it were two days ago, David, instead of fifteen 
years.” Sandra’s brooding eyes closed, and under their 
white lids they were seeing a slim young wife making 
brave efforts to be a strong young pal. She had sat 
there in the cockpit where Mate was now sitting, only 
it was at the tiller of another boat—an impetuous old 
sloop—and David had laughed at the trembling of her 
hands. He had been as merciless in his laughing, lov¬ 
ing, insistent way, as a pirate compelling a victim to 
walk a plank. And above the wonder at the strange¬ 
ness of the demands which marriage was making upon 
her, she had smiled determinedly. 

She opened her eyes finally and let them gaze for a 
long tense moment at the wide hand that covered Mate’s 
at the tiller end. A spasm of hurt flitted across her face 
suddenly, then almost at once a mocking smile shadowed 
the corners of her mobile mouth. 

“Like it, Mate?” she asked, cupping her hand to a 
lea for her voice 

“Crazy about it, Mrs. Sandra!” effervesced the girl. 
“If Bobbie could learn to guide a boat, he’d think he 
was the bee’s knees !” 

“Steer, Mate. Not guide,” corrected David. 

“Steer,” parroted Mate submissively. 

A moment later: 

“What do you call the big sail, Mr. David?” 

“Mainsail.” 

The excited brown eyes scanned the sail admiringly. 

“Well,” she said, “it’s some rag, isn’t it?” 


SANDRA 


67 


“Yes,” agreed David delightedly, “it’s some rag!” 
“It’s got such a lot of—of push!" 

“Push!” David winked a twinkling eye at Sandra. 
“What you call push is really resistance. You see, 

Mate, when the wind hits that old sail-” 

“But there isn’t any wind, Mr. David. Kind of a 
little teensy weensy breeze, but no wind.” 

“We make a little wind, and-” 

“I don’t see how we can make any, and anyhow you 
said-” 

“That when the wind hits the sail,” interrupted David 
hastily, “it couldn’t get out except by an overflow. 

And we’re pushed forward by-” 

“Yes,” conceded Mate, her small head on one side, 
her wind-blown hair sweeping across David’s face, “but 
how about this tacking business, when you’re going the 
—the wrong way for even this teensy weensy breeze?” 

“Why is the ocean salt?” laughed Sandra. “Why is 
a Yonker? What is gravity? When does a rhinocer¬ 
os eat, and why? Where is the east when you’re 
south?” She got up and stepping over the combing 
into the cockpit, paused beside David and Mate. She 
pinched the girl’s tanned cheek teasingly. “How have 
you managed to get on without the Book of Answers 
for your Bump of Curiosity?” 

“I expect I am ’most too curious about things!” 
Mate Stanley smiled deprecatingly up at the beautiful 
woman standing beside her. Then with sudden impulse 
she jerked her hand from under David’s and catching 
one of Sandra’s hands with her strong young fingers, 
she drew it upward to meet her bent head, and pressed 
her firm lips worshipfully upon it. 






68 


SANDRA 


Sandra was conscious of a swelling in her throat. A 
fog rose before her eyes. 

“That,” she said, withdrawing her hand under 
pretext of pushing a stray lock of hair under her hat, 
“is because you are normal. We’re all curious !” 

A crooked little smile twisted her lips as the eager 
young fingers, that had just clasped her own, went back 
to the tiller beside David’s. 

“And few of us are satisfied,” she added to herself 
as she turned toward the cabin with a little departing 
wave of her hand, “until we’ve cut into our doll and 
spilled its sawdust. We can’t rest while there is a 
single illusion left to us. We prick the bubble to see 
what is inside it and find— nothing /” 

She stood at the door of the cabin for a thoughtful 
minute, watching the maneuvers of a pair of voracious 
seagulls that were intent upon a school of small fish 
near the surface of the water, then she made her way 
into the cabin where the lunch hamper awaited unpack¬ 
ing. 

“Seems like we’ve been away from home about a 
month!” Mate told her that night as they undressed 
together in the tiny stateroom. 

Sandra watched the swift bird-like movements of 
the girlish, sun-tanned arms as they brushed with stren¬ 
uous impatience the soft brown hair, and linked to sin¬ 
cere admiration was a vague discomfort—a curious 
something that disturbed and depressed her. 

She chatted and laughed in that half languorous, 
half spirited manner of hers which was so peculiarly 
charming, brushed her own hair with smooth vigorous 
strokes, slid with what seemed to be a single movement 


SANDRA 


69 


out of her sweater and skirt, and without appearing to 
be conscious of the fact, kept little Mate Stanley in 
a state of ecstatic wonder and adoration. 

“Don’t have to use any magic curlers, do you?” 
observed Mate as finishing her toilet for the night, she 
sat down in a wicker chair and drew her bare boyish 
legs up under her. 

“No,” answered Sandra, stepping behind a cretonne 
curtain and coming forth again in a yellow silk night- 
robe which she had previously taken from her bag. 

“Mine curls naturally, too,” said the girl. “But it’s 
crinkly. Don’t lay against my head like regular hair!” 
She wrinkled her small nose and twisted her sweet 
mouth to a wry little smile. 

“You’ve lovely hair, Mate! And it is the color of 
your eyes. I should call it tortoise-shell brown!” 

“Honest!” A flush of happiness stained the elfin 
face. 

“Honest, cross my heart!” laughed Sandra. 

“Why,” Mate whispered, “that’s beautiful! I—I 
didn’t know anything about me could be so—beautiful 
as—as tortoise-shell!” 

There was a look of wistfulness in the eyes that were 
usually roguish, and Sandra found herself suddenly 
beside the wicker chair, with her bare arm encircling the 
girl’s crepe de chine veiled shoulders. 

“You have the most beautiful thing in the world, 
Mate,” she said softly, looking down into the eyes that 
were lifted to hers. 

Mate sighed contentedly. 

“It must be, if you think so,” she agreed, shyly nest- 


70 


SANDRA 


ling her small head against the cool bare arm of her 
worshipped goddess. 

“I’m not talking now about your hair, dear,” ex¬ 
plained Sandra gently, seating herself on the chair arm. 
“Your great asset—the beauty you have for which 
women like me would give our souls-” 

“Yes?” urged Mate breathlessly. 

“Is youth!” 

“Oh!” Mate relaxed disappointedly. 

Sandra laughed. 

“It’s the thing we value least when we have it, and 
most when we’ve lost it!” 

“You have it!” exclaimed Mate loyally. 

“An imitation of it!” 

Little Mate Stanley twisted round in her chair and 
stared up at Sandra protestingly. 

“Well,” she said vehemently, “I guess when any 
human woman on this earth is as beautiful as you are, 
they don’t have to worry about their not being a flap¬ 
per, not even if she’s got hair and eyes like tortoise¬ 
shell!” 

“You got that rather mixed, but I understand, and 
I thank you, Mate. Nevertheless, we do worry, we 
human women of this earth , and we—sometimes we’re 
fearfully envious of you flappers, tortoise-shell or not.” 

Mate’s brown eyes widened. 

“Envious! Not you-” 

“Terribly!” 

“And here I am—envying you like—like anything! 
Gee! That’s queer, isn’t it? You envying me because 
I have to ask my mother and my dad to let me go to 




SANDRA 


71 


some silly kid party, and me envying you because you’re 
married and don’t have to ask anybody anything!” 

“And one day,” smiled Sandra, “you’ll be married— 
maybe to a a David,” an unaccountable shiver ran 
through her and a faraway look came into the eyes 
that had wrenched themselves from Maitland’s in¬ 
quisitive gaze, “and you will be crying for youth.” 

“But the freedom-” 

“There is no such condition, Mate. At least few 
of us have the courage to try for it. The possibility 
of it attracts us. We hunger for it always . . . In 
childhood we’re restrained from cutting into our dolls. 
When we grow older we are afraid to prick the bubble. 
And so we may chafe against things but if we are wise 
we come to accept them as they are.” 

“Yet you said that you envy—me because of my— 
my youth!” 

“And so I do! You see, I am not wise.” 

“Oh!” cried Mate. “You’re dreadfully wise! Mother 
thinks you’re ’most the wisest person on this very 
earth. And Bobbie-” 

“Ah! But I would prick the bubble!” said Sandra 
to herself. 

“Bobbie’s crazy about you. He says you’re-” 

“Oh! You darling believer!” Sandra caught the boy¬ 
ish little figure impulsively to her breast. “Whatever 
I do with this Rusty whom you know and—and like, 
try to understand that I was driven as the wind drives 
this yawl!” 

“Rusty! Rusty!” cried Mate, overcome with some 
strange, strangling emotion, her face pressed against 
Sandra’s breast, her figure trembling. 





72 


SANDRA 


“Rusty!” She could scarcely believe that she was 
here in her gorgeous woman’s arms. “Please, oh! 
please, don’t talk about—about yourself as if—as if 
something was going to happen to you! I couldn’t 
bear anything to happen to you, especially now that 
you have—have held me like this and—let me call you 
— Rusty!" 

Sandra buried her face in the soft brown hair and 
for a moment they sat perfectly still. Then Sandra 
loosed her arms and stood up. 

“You’d better crawl into bed,” she suggested, avoid¬ 
ing the brown eyes. “I’m going outside for a half hour 
with David. He’s to sleep out there, and I expect 
I’ll have to tuck him in,” 

From behind the cretonne curtain, she took a baggy 
old bathrobe belonging to David, and, folding it about 
her, turned a smiling face to the girl in the wicker 
chair. 

“I’ve never seen a yellow nightgown before,” com¬ 
mented Maitland irrelevantly. “It’s lovely on you!” 

Sandra paused at the wall mirror to pin back her 
hair. 

“Pink and pale blue seem somehow not to—to suit 
me,” she said, meeting Mate’s eyes in the glass and 
smiling into them whimsically. 

“Bobbie says you should wear the tiger colors!” 

“Really!” 

“Yes. He’s got awfully good taste about women’s 
clothes. I don’t expect, though, that he’s ever seen a 
woman’s nightgown!” After a brief pause: “Does 
Mr. David like your yellow nightgown?” 


SANDRA 


73 

“Why,” said Sandra a little surprised, “I don’t know. 
He’s never said.” 

“It must be awfully nice to be married—not like 
mother, but like you.” 

“What is the difference, Mate?” 

“Oh! I don’t know. Maybe it’s us kids, Bobbie 
and me, and maybe it’s the yellow nightgown. I don’t 
know.” The crepe de chine covered knees drew up 
to a small round chin, and between the tortoise-shell 
eyes gathered a little puzzling frown. “Now, mother 
wouldn’t ever in this very world put that old bathrobe 
on over her nightgown and go outside if that was dad 
out there. And anyway she’d have long sleeves in the 
gown and—and maybe a ruffle at the neck. She wears 
flannel ones in the winter, and-” 

“But think of how many things she does for all of 
you!” 

“I didn’t say she didn’t do things for us! She’s 
about the motheriest mother there is, I guess.” 

“And when you’re all in bed, I’ve an idea that she’s 
still puttering around the house putting things away 
and arranging for the morrow. Naturally she—she’d 
need a gown of a substantial material.” 

Probelly! But I don’t see,” Mate cocked her small 
head to one side like an inquisitive sparrow, “why she 
couldn’t have one yellow nightgown, to look pretty in 
when she’d got the things put away.” 

“But there would be no one to see her. You would 
all be asleep.” 

Mate was not satisfied. She shook her head discon¬ 
solately. 

“Well, she could wake us up and make us look. Once 



74* SANDRA 

mother was in a hospital in New York—she had appem- 
seedus—and she looked beautiful. The nurse had fixed 
her hair a tediouser way than mother ever fixes it her¬ 
self, and she had on a silk nightgown without any 
sleeves. When they let dad and Bobbie and me in to 
see her, we were terribly scared and we cried a lot, 
but all the time I kept thinking how beautiful she 
looked. I expect every human woman, even if she is a 
mother, wants to look pretty in a hospital where there 
are so many people and there isn’t anything else to do. 
And I guess I’d never in this world have known how 
pretty my mother can look if it hadn’ of been for the 
appendiseedus!” 

“Why don’t you arrange her hair for her. Mate?” 

“She won’t let me. Says I’d make her feel foolish! 
Once I begged her to let me bob it, and she just laughed 
at me!” 

“Bob it! Your mother’s hair! You wanted to bob 
it!” Sandra could scarcely stifle a laugh. Plump little 
Eve Stanley with bobbed hair! 

“Well, either that or fix it like you fix yours, and I 
couldn’t do that though I tried one whole day and she 
said I gave her the worst headache she’d ever had in 
her life. Her hair doesn’t curl,” finished Mate mood- 

ily * . !_* 

“Neither,” said Sandra in a mockingly tragic whis¬ 
per, “does mine—naturally! I’ve a permanent wave!” 

“Really!” Mate’s brown eyes sparkled excitedly. 
“Isn’t that splendid!” 

“Not in my opinion,” laughed Sandra ruefully. 
“I’ve discovered that a permanent wave is about the 
most temporary of all beautiful things! It has to be 


SANDRA 


75 


done over again every few months, and yet we keep on 
calling it permanent!” 

“I didn’t mean that the wave was splendid. Though 
it is—terribly splendid!” explained Mate. “I meant 
that it was splendid to be grown up and go to beauty 
parlors and have things done to you! When I’m mar- 
ried I m going to have a facial twice a day and a per¬ 
manent wave every week.” 

“You’ll have to get a permanent straight first, I’m 
afraid. I suppose,” said Sandra moving off toward 
the door, c that you’ll also have a—yellow nightgown.” 

“One for every night!” flashed Mate giggling. “And 
I’ll wake up my husband and kids and make them look 
at me! I hope my husband’ll be like Mr. David. And 
I hope he’ll have a boat like this. If he hasn’t I’ll 
make him buy one and then I’ll go outside and sit with 
him in it—I mean with me in it—anyway—you know 
what I mean, don’t you, Mrs. Rusty! Only I wouldn’t 
ever in this world put on his old bathrobe over it. 
Probelly he’d have a nice bathrobe though—maybe 
one of those black silk ones like Valentino and Doug 
Fairbanks wear. I’d make him buy one!” 

“Du Barry! Du Barry! Du Barry!” laughed Sandra 
blowing a kiss across her shoulder as she stepped out 
into the cockpit. 

“What’s that ?” asked David without looking round. 
He was stretched out upon his back along the seat 
inside the combing, his drowsy gaze on the stars. 

“My yellow nightgown, David. It’s come out to be 
looked at. Wake up!” 

“Eh? What?” David sat up, blinking. 

“Do I look very beautiful in this gown, David?” She 


SANDRA 


76 

loosed the rusty blue cord at her waist. “It has no 
sleeves. Your old bathrobe hides that fact. Y ou 
should have a black silk lounging robe, David. Valen¬ 
tino has one!" 

“What on earth-” 

“Perhaps, after all, you’d like me better if I were 
lying in a hospital. Do you think, David, that I d 
be lovelier if I had appendicitis?” 

“Good Lord! What are you talking about, Rusty?” 
David was on his feet looking a little startled under the 
moonlight. “Does your appendix hurt?” 

“No, David. No!” Sandra looked up into his grave 
face seriously. “It’s the yellow nightgown!” 

“The—what!” 

“Oh, David! David! David! Romance is in there in 
that old wicker chair that smells of your pipe, and it 
has eyes and hair like polished tortoise-shell, and it 
wants a lover-husband like you, David, and a yawl like 
this old Bacchante, and—and a thin yellow gown and a 
black silk lounging robe like Valentino’s! David ” 
there was a curious catch in her voice, and the dark- 
fringed eyes looked mistily into his with some strange 
expression in their fathomless depths—“she mustn’t 
marry—too soon. Help me to make Eve and Peter 
understand that she must have her fling—that she must 
drink her wine before she tries to settle down to the— 
the milk of life! She’s not like Eve, David. 

“She—she’s like—she’s like someone I know—some¬ 
one who feels cheated because—because she didn’t have 
her fling—didn’t have her chance to play with romance 
—to break her heart over a dozen men—to feel the 
thrills of love and the pains of disillusionment! Per- 



SANDRA 


77 

haps perhaps if this—this woman I know had done 
these things—broken her girl’s heart a dozen times 
over men not worth her slightest smile, she’d appreciate 
the man to whom she is now married—appreciate the 

calm and surety that are now hers- 

As it is, David, she’s haunted with the ghosts of 
might-h^ve-been romances—obsessed with the feeling 
that she has been cheated—rebelling at the thought 
that Death may stalk her before she has tasted excite¬ 
ment got out of the prosaic! She’s so mad with the 
thing, that she’d rather be a Wanton in the heart of 
a pleasure-drunk city, than an indulged cabbage sort 
of wife in the cloister of a too-calm home. 

“Oh! It must not happen—this madness—to—to 
her, David ! Promise to help me convince Eve and Peter 
of this!” 

She shook David’s arm insistently, her eyes holding 
his, her breath coming staccato from her parted lips. 

But David, rubbing a forefinger up and down along 
his temple, stared back at her dazedly. 

“Is she engaged to somebody?” he asked, trying to 
feel his way through her maze of words. 

“No. She’s not engaged. She’s a child. She’ll be 
a woman, though, in such a little while! We—But per¬ 
haps we’d better talk about it another time!” 

Sandra looked out across the glistening water with 
eyes grown hot and dry, and David gazing down at her 
wondered why it was, that she should be so excited at 
thought of little Mate Stanley getting married. 
Hadn’t she herself married immediately she left school! 
And wasn’t theirs a perfect union! This idea of not 
marrying young was all bosh—twaddle! Funny Sandra 



*78 SANDRA 

would fall for it! She was so infernally clever about 
everything. And anyway she was a living proof of the 
wisdom and desirability of early marriage. _ _ 

She had been plastic in his hands. She had assimi¬ 
lated his ideas, at least, a great many of them—all of 
the more important ones, in fact. She had learned to 
swim with him, to hunt with him, and to sail with him. 
She had come to know and to appreciate worthy archi¬ 
tecture. She had been young enough to be molded— 
fitted into his life—mortared into his habits. How ab- 
surd to worry about Mate. 

But, of course, this was Sandra who had harangued 
in Greek against early marriage. Sandra agreed with 
few of the orthodox conventionalities. Moreover, she 
had an aboriginal insouciance about the manner in 
which she disagreed with the exponents of these long 
respected customs. Like as not she would take issue 
with Aristotle on many of his ethics, were old Aristotle 
here to intrigue her. Certainly there was no telling 
what she had done to William James Hapgood. Doubt¬ 
less she had shot his dogma full of holes and then ripped 
the foundations of his faith out from under him. 

David chuckled. Then he rubbed his temple thought¬ 
fully. He hoped Sandra wouldn’t stay long aboard. 
She always made him feel as if he were expected to do 
arithmetic examples. Though hanged, if there wasn’t 
something tremendously fine about her! She was like 
a spirited Arabian filly that would not be harnessed. 

Still_he was never quite at ease with her. Whereas 

with Rusty it was like being with but a separate, though 
component, part of himself. 

Sandra sat down upon the cushioned seat, her gaze 


SANDRA 


79 

sweeping along the moonglow that pathed the water, 
her brows drawn slightly together. She was weighing 
and measuring David, and though she had a habit of 
weighing and measuring people, she had until now, 
scrupulously avoided putting David into the scales or 
under her yardstick. Subconsciously she had dissected 
him again and again, but never consciously—never 
intentionally. 

To-night suddenly she broke the leash with which 
Rusty had restrained her, and against this moonglow 
path she was spreading out the anatomical scraps of 
David’s structure. Coolly she examined these dissected 
bits of his character. Ruthlessly she slashed with her 
inquiring scalpel. And into her face came finally an 
unfamiliar sadness, a weariness—a look of tender pity. 

David was lithe enough of figure but mentally David 
was ponderous. His mind was neither flexible nor 
agile. It moved laboredly, seldom turning, seldom 
changing its general direction. Often had she realized 
David’s good fortune at never having been summoned 
to serve as a member of a jury. Having come to a ver¬ 
dict immediately the trial had begun, what would he 
not have suffered in his dogged loyalty to that verdict! 
What would not the other members of that jury have 
been forced to endure in their efforts to win him over 
to their well-thought-out decision! How useless would 
have been logic and argument. Dear old David! 

How many times at the conclusion of somebody’s 
clever after-dinner story had she missed David’s 
chuckle in the chorus of laughter that swept round the 
table! Her gaze coming slowly across to him would find 
his face unmoved. Not often did she find in it the 


80 SANDRA 

thing which, in spite of her knowledge of him, she had 
expected to find. Usually she would discover round 
his mouth a faint smile of good-natured contempt for 
the story which to his mind, had been without point or 
reason. Seldom did she find that querulous, bewildered 
look that acknowledges mental defeat. No. David was 
not mentally acrobatic. He would approach a hurdle 
with all the interest and intensity of the nimblest 
thinker, but somewhere his mind began to stumble, and 
when on the wrong side of the hurdle it fell down com¬ 
pletely, he was just as well satisfied—never in the least 
bruised—never in the least envious of those who had 
taken the hurdle successfully. With fine disdain he was 
most probably smiling at their foolish waste of enerpr. 

She knew now that always under her love for him, 
she had profoundly regretted this mental lameness of 
David. Not that David was not clever. He was. Even 
brilliant in a way, but not in tbe way best suited to 
making one a popular dinner guest—a popular any 
kind of guest—or a popular any kind of host. 

Then there was David the unkempt. Oh! He was 
clean enough! Physically, mentally and morally he 
was immaculate. It was his indifference to the little 
things which make for urbanity, that set him apart in 
a drawing room. True, she did not wish him to be a 
manikin, nor an ultra-conventional dilettante. She her¬ 
self was an outlaw beneath her veneer of suavity. She 
did regret, however, David’s inability to fit himself to 
glamour. Bright lights disturbed him, brilliant discus¬ 
sions bored him. He was out of focus with that life 
which attracted her so forcefully. Those things which 
intoxicated her put David to sleep. He was the antith- 


SANDRA 81 

esis of Stephen Winslow, and yet— No. She would 
not want David to be like Stephen. 

She shrugged her shoulders in contempt for Stephen 
Winslow, but against her diagnosed bits of David, 
Stephen s sardonic face was moonglowed in bas-relief, 
and into her green eyes came that curious suggestion of 
phosphorescence. Stephen’s smile challenged and 
mocked her. It frightened her. Fascinated her. 

Of a sudden a revulsion of feeling rushed through 
her. David! How could she have counted against him 
such trifling things as the manner in which he danced, 
balanced a tea cup, made love, or wore his tie! David 
who was fine and clean. David who was tender and 
indulgent! 

She knew now—all at once—that for years she had 

subconsciously looked forward to release from David_ 

not David as David—but David as bondage. And the 
knowledge shamed her, filled her with a sense of guilt. 

“David !” She stood up quickly and took a step 
toward him. “David!” She slid a hand lovingly 
through his arm, and with the other she turned his face 
until he was looking down at her. “If I were not your 
wife—if—if I were your mistress come out with you on 
a love debauch, we’d be doing mad things to-night! 
Let’s don’t lose our thrills, David. Let’s be mad! Let’s 
have a swim together out here in the moonlight, as if we 
were back in the stone age and there were just you and 
I and the sea! Will you, David?” 

“Rusty!” David’s voice was thick. He caught her 
to him in a rough embrace. “Rusty! You siren!” 

“Get your things off, David!” She pushed him from 
her and with a sinuous movement dropped the faded 


SANDRA 


82 

old bathrobe from her shoulders. “She’s asleep in 
there, and she won’t know, and—and there’s mystery, 
passion, flesh-lure, romance, in the curling lips of our 
moonlit sea, David!” 

Her eyes were luminous, her voice like crinkling silk. 
She stepped onto the seat, stood silhouetted there a 
moment in her rippling, breeze-billowed, gauzy yellow 
nightrobe, laughing back at David across her shoulder. 
Then before David’s eager arms could reach her, she had 
stepped over the combing to the little deck. David 
called to her in a passionate whisper, but before he had 
quite said her name, something fragrant and silken 
cob-webbed itself against his face and enmeshed his 
great head. 

He caught the thing away with a jerk, laughing 
excitedly. Her nightgown! Rusty’s nightgown! 

“Rusty!” he called softly. 

But the dim white figure at the stern laughed back 
its challenge and leaped out into the shimmering waves 
of the moonglow path. 


CHAPTER VII 


I T was on the Wednesday night of the following week 
that Sandra again met the Reverend William 
James Hapgood. Persuading David that the 
simplest way to pay off their accumulated social obli¬ 
gations was to entertain at dinner at one of the New 
York roof restaurants where the charges for orchestra 
and for dancing privilege were insidiously slipped into 
the price list on the menu cards, Sandra had arranged 
a Wednesday night dinner at the Ritz. 

Of the twenty guests William James Hapgood was 
the only one to whom the Warings were not socially 
indebted. Moreover, according to David, it was not 
seemly that a man of William’s calling should be ex¬ 
pected to attend a dinner dance at the Ritz or for the 
matter of that at any other place. 

“He’ll purify the evening, David,” argued Sandra. 
“And I do so want your funny old Jimsy!” 

She had leaned her supple figure against David’s 
sinewy body and had rumpled his hair with caressing' 
fingers, and David had discovered suddenly how abso¬ 
lutely necessary it was that William James be invited— 
made to come. 

“Rusty certainly knows how to do things,” David 
Waring whispered into the ear of Eve Stanley who sat 
at his left at the end of the table. “Got to hand it to 
her! Left to me, we’d be sitting in some tawdry Broad- 
83 


84 SANDRA 

way cabaret place.” At Eve’s little chuckle, he added: 
“And I’d be feeling a darn sight more at home with the 

forks!” 

Eve’s flushed face turned for another admiring 
glance at her hostess. David was right. Sandra War¬ 
ing not only knew how to arrange a dinner at the Ritz, 
but having arrived there with her guests, she was as 
much at home in the exotic atmosphere as were the 
ferns beneath her plate or the shimmering lights above 
her glorious heap of burnished hair. 

“Is she never nervous?” asked Eve, her dilated blue 
eyes coming back again to David. 

“Not when she’s doing this sort of thing! aug 
David. “This—” he bent his great head nearer to 
Eve’s golden one—“is Sandra in her element ! Sandra 
is nervous only under a regime of simplicity — • 
Rusty and I often get tremendously on her nerves!’ 

“I wish I were more like her,” sighed Eve wistfully. 
“Since that stock of Peter’s has been paying so roy¬ 
ally, Peter and the Peterkins have been wanting me to 
engage a butler, but though I manage two maids well 
enough, I’m sure a butler would frighten me to death. 
I’d be curtsying to him, and running to open the door 
for him!” 

David laughed and winked an eye at Peter Stanley, 
who was looking disconsolate between two smartly 
gowned women who—almost as much a part of the 
place as Sandra—were carrying on an animated con¬ 
versation across Peter’s untouched hors d’ osure. The 
Blythe girl and that tennis-playing Gania Bartelle! 
Funny, what Sandra could see in either of those two. 
The Blythe girl was always prowling languidly round 


SANDRA 85 

the club as if she thought it were a sanitarium. And 
Gania Bartelle! He’d stake his last cent that her 
name had been something like Sue or Kate before she 
married and divorced poor old Renny Bartelle! When 
Gania had returned from a trip to Paris, Sandra had 
invited her to spend a week with them in their New 
York apartment, and during that week he’d had no 
single glimpse of Rusty. She had been completely 
dominated eclipsed. He had thought when they moved 
down on Long Island there would be an end to the 
Gania set, but Sandra had not permitted herself to be 
alienated from those of it who interested her. With 
her usual- 

“I think,” Eve was saying, “Mate will be like her. 
She’s quite mad about your wife, Mr. Waring. Makes 
the most earnest efforts to imitate her. She confided 
to me last night that she wanted to look like Sandra, 
to marry a man like you and to—” Eve’s round cheeks 
flushed delicately—“to have a—a lot of babies!” 

“No! Really?” 

Eve nodded. 

“Little mother-girl!” muttered David, his eyes mois- 
tening inexplicably. 

After a moment he sighed and his gaze traveled back 
to the other end of the table where Sandra in some 
coppery creation that was cut square across her milk- 
white breast, was holding court. Stephen Winslow’s 
glistening black head was bent close to her at her left, 
apparently for the purpose of catching from her smiling 
lips what was most probably one of those swift vague 
remarks which had always made their conversation as 
meaningless to him—David—as though it were spoken 



g@ SANDRA 

in some strange tongue. And there was Hapgood— 
good old William James—on her right, smiling, no 
doubt, in reminiscence of a Sandra word-thrust which 

he had been unable to parry. 

He watched her gravely for a long moment, his eyes 
admiring, his heart doing homage, a questioning smile 
striving to indent the corners of his mobile mouth. She 
was like her father he thought. The father who had 
lived as he himself had once said: only when the lights 

were on! . 

He recalled with what reluctance he had admired 
her father! How sorry he had been that his Rusty 
fresh from school had known no mother, and that she 
had for a father a debonair man of the world whose 
sole income was derived from the gaming table. And 
yet—he had admired Ralph Dawley. Admired the 
splendor of his manners—the elegance of his dress. He 
had admired his feline grace—his charm of voice—his 
popularity. And when stories had come to him about 
how Dawley could win or lose a fortune without the 
least stiffening of his calm half-amused smile, he had 
admired his marvelous poise! Even at the end—the 
year after Rusty and he had married—Ralph Dawley 
had, he remembered, gone deeper into his heart. He had 
been out of luck. Several notes were coming due, the 
larger of which was in the hands of a young chap whose 
wife had tuberculosis. The fellow pressed his claim— 
explained rather hysterically to Dawley his immediate 
need for funds. And—one night after the lights were 
on Dawley shot himself. A letter to him and Sandra 
had said that his life insurance must liquidate his note 
to the man whose wife was ill. “Poor chap!” he had 


SANDRA 


87 


written, “it’ll help him such a lot, whereas for me—I’m 
just turning off one of the lights!” 

Ralph Dawley—gambler, debauchee, libertine—was a 
man of high, blind courage, with a gallant spirit behind 
his half-amused smile! Sandra had something of his 
courage—much of his grace and magnetic charm, and 
she was gallant. How many times had she saved a 
situation for some discomfited guest! How many times 
had she sacrificed herself for him or his pleasure! 
Although of course, there was Rusty to urge or to 
shame her! Still, there had been times when Sandra 
might have dominated and instead she had laid down 
her sceptor in favor of Rusty! 

Yes! She was gallant—with the simple, unem¬ 
bellished gallantry of an intrepid young trouba¬ 
dour! 

David smiled happily. 

“Your Adam,” remarked Stephen Winslow to San¬ 
dra, “is playing with Peter’s Eve. Are you never 
jealous?” 

“Of Eve!” Sandra’s head lifted until she could stare 
back at Stephen through a fringe of dark lashes. 

“Of anybody.” 

“Why should I be?” 

“But Eve has such blue eyes!” 

“She has had appendicitis, Stephen.” 

“What has that to do with-” 

“Scars are so ugly!” 

“Oh!” Stephen grimaced appreciatively. “I see. I 
mean—I don’t see. And perhaps David will never 
see-” 


“Stephen!” 




88 


SANDRA 


“Didn’t you say-” 

“Yes. I did. I was being smart, Stephen. I’m 
sorry I said it. Eve is a splendid little woman. She’s 
a faithful wife and a perfect mother.” 

“Indeed!” 

Stephen Winslow turned his handsome face full upon 
Sandra and smiled insolently. 

“I don’t like splendid little women. I have only 
scorn for a faithful wife. And as for a perfect mother 
—” he shrugged contemptuously. 

For an instant a shadow of loathing darkened San¬ 
dra’s vivid face, then as her eyes continued to meet his 
sardonic gaze, the shadow dissolved and a faint flush 
mounted to her white cheeks. Her hands dropped un¬ 
steadily to her lap and came convulsively together 
under the edge of the table. 

William James Hapgood sensed the fight she was 
making against the unhealthy influence of the man who 
was, he surmised, the admirer whom she had called a 
satyr. From the corner of his eye he had seen the slim 
hands flutter to her lap—had seen the bare white arms 
go tense, and into his heart had come a curious com¬ 
passion for this woman who mocked his God. 

He looked more squarely at her. Her face was 
turned toward Winslow, her small head was reared 
high on its slender neck, her hands were still locked 
together in her lap. 

She was like, he thought, an exquisitely-shaped, deli¬ 
cately tinted porcelain jar, filled with a pot-pourri of 
pungent spices. Her emotions seemed oddly fragrant 
and volatile. He felt somehow that she decanted a dis¬ 
tilled essence of love for David Waring. That her love 



SANDRA 


89 


for David was the sweeter elements of her nature and 
that she poured it out to him gently, in a clear thin 
stream. Should, however, another man arouse the dor¬ 
mant ferocity of her, he had not a doubt but that there 
would surge from her a turbulent flood that would be 
past all damming. It would empty her—drain her 
heart dry. 

Sandra! What a compelling creature she was! And 
withal how naive! . . . She wanted to explore the 
bizarre—to drink deep vis vitae! ... If only he might 
be-- 

“A molten precious metal—” Winslow’s low silken 
voice insinuated itself into his soliloquy—“was poured 
into a mold and when it had taken form it was known 
as Sandra! Beautiful as burnished gold, and—” came 
a mocking sigh—“as cold and as unresponsive.” 

Hapgood could not help listening for Sandra’s an¬ 
swer to this. It came almost on the instant. 

“And you,” she drawled provocatively, “are sin made 
tangible. Out of the spawn of hell there rose a gar¬ 
goyle and the world with rare inconsistence called it 
by the beautiful name of Stephen Winslow.” 

“Ah, Sandra! You are not of New York. You are 
of the long ago Carthage. You were the dancing faun 
at the feast of Salammbo. You have the sharp, intoxi¬ 
cating tang of Zanzibar. Eve is sweet lavender. You, 
Sandra, are clove and cinnamon!” 

It was odd, brooded Hapgood, that the man should 
have voiced his own unspoken thought. 

“I too, think of her as clove and cinnamon,” he put 
in boldly, leaning forward to catch Winslow’s gaze. 

“You!” There was subtle contempt in the single word. 



90 


SANDRA 


“I!” challenged Hapgood. 

“And why shouldn’t I be—clove and cinnamon to 
him?” demanded Sandra, coming to Hapgood’s defense 
with a fleeting smile at him and a frown at Winslow. 

“I was under the impression,” said the latter, “that 
clergymen thought of women only as saints.” 

“Stephen, dear, any impression that you might have 
about clergymen is certain to be several degrees re¬ 
moved from actual facts, since your impressions must 
of necessity be received through long distance—radio 
perhaps.” 

“Are you quite sure, Mrs. Waring,” asked Hapgood, 
“that you know anything about us?” 

Sandra laughed. 

“I went to Sunday school when X was a little 
girl-” 

“You don’t mean,” interrupted Stephen Winslow, 
“that your father-” 

“Yes,” Sandra cut him off. “He was your sort of 
man, Steve. Made his—our living as you make yours. 
But unlike you, he respected that which confounded 
him. Christianity with all its mysticisms appealed to 
him. Its promises awed him. He didn’t believe in it 
because he didn’t know anything about it. You don’t 
believe in it because —” 

“Because like you, my dear, it’s all too preposter¬ 
ous ! Beg your pardon, Padre.” 

“At least,” continued Sandra, “my father wanted to 
give me a chance to judge for myself. Had you a 
daughter, Steve, you would force upon her your own 
convictions.” 

“Probably,” said Winslow. 





SANDRA 


91 


“As to clergymen thinking of all women as saints,” 
pursued Sandra Waring, “I think they are more cer¬ 
tain to believe us to be so many vampires. Is it not so, 
Jimsy-Afraid-of-Me?” 

William James Hapgood looked into the taunting 
face that was turned now full upon him, and it was 
like looking into the sun at mid-day. 

“X think,” he said slowly, “many of you are—just 
that!” 

“Another of the things I undervalued about clergy¬ 
men,” commented Winslow, reluctant admiration in his 
voice, “is their candor.” He bowed and smiled at Hap¬ 
good across Sandra’s bare shoulder. 

Before the clergyman could reply the lady on Win¬ 
slow’s left demanded his attention, and Sandra and 
Hapgood were alone in the discussion. 

“Why did you insist upon my coming here to-night?” 
Hapgood inquired, shaking his head in refusal of the 
flask which was offered to him from his neighbor on the 
right. 

“I wanted to see you in—Babylon. Some day 
shall see you in your vestments with choir boys all 
about you and a vaulted church roof above you. Then 
I shall know—” she paused. 

“You shall know—what?” 

“Whether you belong with the feasters of Babylon or 
—or behind a communion table.” 

“You are courageous, Mrs. Waring. Few persons 
would say such things to-” 

“To a Doctor of Divinity? Perhaps not. But you 
see,” Sandra looked pensively at her plate, “I am forced 
to separate the priest from the man. I invited the 



92 


SANDRA 


priest to my dinner, but not being acquainted with a 
liturgic language, I am compelled to talk to the man. 9 * 

“I believe you know all languages, Mrs. Waring. Mr. 
Winslow said—I couldn’t help hearing—that you be¬ 
longed to the long ago Carthage. I wonder just how 
long ago, really, the skepticism of you was first con¬ 
ceived !” 

“In the Paleozoic period!” laughed Sandra. “When 
you were a tadpole and I was a fish—” she pushed her 
plate a little to one side and leaned her arms on the 
table, her eyes lifted dreamily to his—“and we swam 
together towards a new life—into the beginning of— 
love!” 

“Don’t, Sandra! For God’s sake! Don’t!” Hapgood 
frowned but his voice was unsteady. 

“Does a hint at evolution—a Darwinian thought so 
tremendously disturb you?” 

He flinched under her questioning gaze. , 

“No,” he said tersely. “It is your damnable sorcery 
that disturbs me.” 

“Then you will not consider with me—” her eyes 
were narrow, dark-fringed pools where a tadpole and 
a fish might well have been reflected—“the possibility 
of our having been together before ? In some other age ?” 

“If we were—” the goaded man could see nothing in 
the great brilliantly lighted room, but the cool shad¬ 
owed pools, and the faint, suggestive pulsing at the 
base of a slender white throat—“if we were,” he re¬ 
peated, “I’ve no doubt that it was on the banks of the 
Nile, and that you fed me to the crocodiles!” 

Her flagrantly carmined lips parted and a faint, 
tinkling laugh escaped them. 


SANDRA 


93 


Then: 

“You are wrong. There on the banks of the Nile we 
died by the same weapon and were wrapped together 
in the same cerement. That was because some stupid 
law of man had kept us apart in life.” She took from 
Winslow a gold and silver flask and held it for a mo¬ 
ment between her two pale hands. “That is a beautiful 
thought, isn’t it ?” 

“It is neurotic!” 

“But surely not more so than—than the crocodile 
theory!” 

“Why must we talk about such unpleasant things!” 

“They’re not unpleasant. They’re exciting.” 

“To the flesh only.” 

“Passions of the flesh are born in the mind” 

“It is useless to argue with you, Mrs. Waring.” 

“Quite,” laughed Sandra, surreptitiously pouring 
a little of the flask’s contents into a glass. Then 
seriously: “I’m sorry if I’ve made myself offensive. I 
can’t help striking my flint against your steel. The 
sparks from the contact are—electric.” She returned 
the flask to Winslow. 

“Let’s be careful that they do not set us on fire— 
consume us, Sandra.” 

Sandra’s vivid face sobered. 

“For your sake, I—I shall be careful,” she replied 
softly. 

After a silent moment: 

“Will you dance the next number with me, Jimsy?” 

“Is that—being careful, Sandra?” 

“But the music, Jimsy! And the lights! And the 
perfume of flowers. The clink of silver and of crystal 


94 SANDRA 

glasses! The laughter! The tender glances! The feet 
that glide together over the waxed floor! The hearts 
beating against hearts! Look at it all, Jimsy! Breathe 
it into your lungs—deep— deep! Hasn’t it the power 
to seduce you?” 

She leaned nearer to him, her face alight, her bare 
arm touching his. “See, Jimsy!” she whispered. “Out 
there between those rows of palms and ferns with a 
million lights shining upon us as stars shine through a 
forest, you can hold me close, and—neither your God 
nor my—man, can call the moment illicit!” 

The Reverend William James Hapgood made a 
movement to rise to his feet, then sinking back to his 
former position, he shook his head gravely 

“I can’t, Sandra. I don’t dare!” 

“You danced a number with Gania!” 

“With Mrs. Bartelle! Yes. With you it would be— 
different!” 

“That,” said Sandra her red lips parting breath¬ 
lessly, “is the reason you must dance with me—just 
this once, Jimsy. Just this once! One dance in all 
our eternity—yours and mine—because it will be 
different from all other dances that ever were 
danced.” 

“Please! I-” 

“You are not—strong enougn:' There was biting 
scorn in Sandra’s voice, and her red lips curved dis¬ 
dainfully. She would have moved a little from him, 
but already his fingers were upon her arm—hot and 
gripping—and he was lifting her to her feet. 

And so they danced—between rows of palms and 
ferns with a million lights shining down upon them as 


SANDRA 


95 


stars shine through a forest. And the woman’s world 
and the man’s heaven were forgotten, as they clung 
to each other through their unconscious rhythms. So 
they might have danced on the banks of the Nile, her 
eyes closed, his gaze upon her parted lips, sensuous 
music stirring their pulses, their breasts together. 

Fifteen minutes later William James Hapgood 
stumbled through the doors of the Ritz into a drizzling 
rain, his hands clenched, his jaws set tightly together. 
He crossed Park Avenue and, pausing at the corner, 
turned and looked back at the brilliantly lighted build¬ 
ing, heedless of the rain that beat upon him. 

“My God!” he muttered savagely. “My God, what 
am I doing to you?” He took off his straw hat and 
flung it from him into the dark of the night. His head 
was hot and the rain felt good upon it. For a long 
time he stood there. Taxicabs slid past, their yellow 
lights slashing through the chaos of blackness and rain. 
Limousines skidded round the corner and stopped to 
let out or take in a feaster of Babylon, then dimly re¬ 
flected in the wet pavement turned away and entered 
the maw of the night. An occasional faint bar of 
music forced its muffled way down to him from the 
restaurant that flared, like a skyrocket curiously sta¬ 
tionary, high up against the inky sky. A tinkling 
laugh from a passing motor-car grated upon his senses 
as though it had been the shrill filing of a saw. From 
his wet coat which so lately had touched the bare flesh 
of a woman’s breast, there rose a curious perfume, 
that nauseated him. 

“Strong!” He laughed harshly. “I am no stronger 
than other men. All my training—all my faith—they 


96 SANDRA 

,do not support me. Truly a chain is no stronger than 
(its weakest link.” 

He turned slowly about and looked off through the 
sweeping rain to the blinking lights of the city that 
never sleeps, and into his mind came an ungenerous 
verse, and rain-soaked and miserable, he agreed with it 
word for word. 

He repeated it aloud with relish: 

“Vulgar of manners, overfed, 

Overdressed and underbred. 

Heartless, Godless, hell’s delight. 

Rude by day and lewd by night, 

Bedwarfed the man, o’ergrown the brute. 

Ruled by Boss and Prostitute; 

Purple robed and pauper clad. 

Raving, rotting, money mad; 

A squirming herd in Mammon’s mesh, 

A wilderness of human flesh; 

Crazed with avarice, lust and rum. 

New York, thy name’s delirium!” 

But even as he said the words he became unconscious 
of their meaning, for a pair of green eyes were smiling 
dreamily into his and a voice that was soft as the 
smooth low notes of a cello, was telling him that long 
ago, they had died together—he and she, and that the 
same cerement had wrapped them, because in life some 
stupid law of man had kept them apart. 

“Sandra!” he whispered. “Sandra!” I—I must 
never see you again.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


T HE summer was gone almost before Sandra real¬ 
ized it. The maple trees in front of the Waring 
house had crimsoned and yellowed and had begun 
to bare their limbs by the time Sandra discovered that 
summer had folded up the wings of the last little butter¬ 
fly and, like the Arabs, had silently stolen away. 

It had been a pleasant summer, but its passing made 
her six months older, and she could not afford to grow 
older—even six months. 

She beat a little tattoo on a chill window-pane—it 
was a morning in early November—as looking out to 
the street from her boudoir, she awakened to the fact 
that while she was still enj oying it, summer had deserted 
her. She hated the autumn—there was to her some¬ 
thing so definite—so piteously final about the manner 
in which the trees abandoned their leaves. Off with the 
old that they might one day soon be on with the new! 
As to winter—that was devastation! Autumn was 
nature in decay! Winter was old age and— Death! 

As she thought of these things Sandra shivered. 
Death! What a dreadful thing that was ! Still, it was 
less terrible, less to be dreaded than old age. The most 
fearful thing about death was the possibility of it 
coming upon one before one had really lived! Surely 
one should have allotted to him enough time for the 
97 


98 


SANDRA 


exploring of all the world’s corners and of all human 
emotions and experiences! Death were nothing but a 
cheat should it cut one down before one’s hunger had 
been satisfied, one’s thirst slaked! 

Out there near those very trees, under an October 
moon, Jimsy had tried to make her believe in the great 
goodness of his Divinity. Dear old Jimsy! He had 
withstood all her artifices with fine stoicism, and had 
tried so valiantly to make her accept his God. And 
she had asked him how his God had dared, after having 
put on earth so much pleasure, to make human life 
too short for but a meager indulgence in it. Was He, 
then, so ungenerous P Was He less kind than the parent 
who sends a child to bed hungry? And Jimsy had 
sighed, and had strode away toward the railway station 
without a backward glance, even though she had called 
out to him contritely. 

Old age! Middle age! They were synonymous! One 
might as well be old as to be no longer young! It was 
true that women like the late Bernhardt continued to 
charm long after they had ceased to count their birth¬ 
days. Through the medium of a stage career, popu¬ 
larity might be made to last to—the end. But what 
did it profit a woman though she gained the whole world 
and lost her own youth! 

And how could a woman who was married remain 
young! Married habits were prosaic, vegetating habits. 
Home, Sweet Home, was the swan song of Romance, and 
without Romance the heart atrophied. One had only 
to take the stage for one’s example—one’s proof that 
applause could keep one’s spirit young. And applause 
could serve the same purpose when won from a here and 


SANDRA 


99 


there individual. Homage! A woman needed homage / 
In a book of recent publication she had read— 

“All women are romantic—which is as it should be. 
Love is a big and vital thing in their lives—it is indeed 
a fundamental feminine need.” 

Why had not the author added to love—the word 
adventure. Certainly all women dreamed—more or less 
consciously—of adventure. Few there were perhaps 
who would acknowledge it, but in the deeper recesses of 
her heart the average woman spectator in a darkened 
picture theater was always imagining herself as the 
heroine. There was not a doubt but that the most 
virtuous wife in the country had languished again and 
again in the amorous arms of Valentino! Or that the 
chaste lips of the South Dakota farmer’s wife had re¬ 
sponded times without number to the tender kiss of 
Douglas Fairbanks. And where was the wife so faith¬ 
ful that she had never submitted to the caresses of John 
Barrymore! Actually a woman might be ever so vir¬ 
tuous and yet in the most secret chamber of her heart 
be a much sought-after, much man-handled harlot! 

Stephen Winslow had whispered something to her last 
night—something that had made her awaken this morn¬ 
ing to the fact that the summer had gone and that she 
was six months older! 

“How much longer will you dare to stay with David ?” 
he had asked. “You’re rooting, Sandra, and after a 
while you’ll not be able to pull loose. Transplanted to 
the swift, mad current of Life, you’d stay young for¬ 
ever ! But with David— What does he know of the 
intricate game of love and adventure? With me, San¬ 
dra, you would be drinking wine from one of your dainty 


100 


SANDRA 


slippers long after the year when David would have 
you wearing galoshes. 

“You’ve never listened to me, Sandra. I want you 
to listen now! I understand your madness because I, 
too, am mad. I know what life must mean for you 
because it must mean the same for me. Excitement— 
adventure—danger even! I could almost wish that old 
Dave were less calm-tempered. It would add delicious 
spice to an elopement with you, were there a chance 
that David might follow and try to kill us both. Even 
death when it comes to you or to me must not be com¬ 
monplace! You see, Sandra, I speak to you as your 
own heart might speak.” 

And then: 

“The years are slipping by. Are you going to let 
time cheat you? Sandra dear! Isn’t madness better 
than oblivion!” 

Oblivion! Madness! Years! 

“Oh!” Sandra rose from the silken-pillowed chair 
and moved across the room to her dresser. “Why did 
Stephen say such hideous things to me! They were bad 
enough —real enough unsaid. Putting them into words 
is like sprinkling salt in an open wound.” 

She looked at herself in her mirror, slim and beauti¬ 
ful in a lacy negligee, and a fine line drew itself between 
her delicate brows. 

She had come during the summer just past to under¬ 
stand herself just as Stephen understood her—had 
perhaps, always understood her. She had come to know 
that as long ago as the year of her marriage to David, 
she had had vague, unacknowledged visions of herself 


SANDRA 


101 


as a dashing woman of the day—a courtesan even— 
courted and fought for. 

She couldn’t be sure as to when she had first begun 
to chafe against the passing of time lest too many years 
should have slipped over her head before her day of 
emancipation. She did know now, however, that always 
this day had been lurking just ahead of her in the dim 
distance. 

Her pleasures had not been entirely of the moment 
ever. They had been like posters of a play to come— 
a sort of forecasting of approaching gayeties. At the 
opera from her pit seat she had seen herself quite 
plainly in one of the boxes, indifferent almost to inso¬ 
lence to the group of men who crowded about her. In 
the restaurants there had been more than a hint of 
scorn in her gaze as it swept the characterless faces of 
the girls who danced past her table in the arms of good- 
looking men. They knew nothing—those girls—of the 
great game as she would one day play it. Men cared 
little for such adoration as could be read in their too 
honest or too obviously lying eyes. They wanted mys¬ 
tery—men. They wanted women whose lifted eyebrow 
could challenge—whose thin smile could be cruel. 

Oh, yes! She had dreamed— unconsciously! She 
smiled a little sadly as she stared at herself in the glass 
and mentally reviewed the secret yearnings of her mar¬ 
ried life. 

Always it had been: this year she would make the 
break. And—always as the months had gone by the 
vague something—whatever it was that was to be her 
signal—failed to come. The days and the weeks were 
pleasant and—well, there was that trip they had 


SANDRA 


102 

planned for the fall. It could go over until spring— 
that final break. And then • 

Always spring came uneventfully and with it David s 
enthusiasm about the trout fishing in mountain streams. 
She could not let him go off alone—David. He would 
never in the world manage his tackle without her. And 
he was careless about catching cold. Moreover, he 
hated having anyone else do things for him when he had 
a cold—David. 

And so—summer after summer there had been the 
fishing in the mountain streams—with dreams above 
the winding reel of the Latin quarter in Paris, or of a 
gay salon in Vienna, and there had been David telling 
the hotel crowd at night what a ripping day they had 
had and what a corking cast his wife had made when 
she had landed the prize trout, while his pipe smoke 
had dissolved into a Venetian balcony overhanging the 
Grand Canal, and there, in an atmosphere of romance, 
she was listening, as George Sand had listened on a long 
ago night, to the old, old story, and the man who bent 
to kiss her hand had about him the charm of manner 
of the old, old world. 

She would make the break the moment they returned 
to the city. Rut summer came with their return and 
with summer a fearful attack of bronchitis, and > 
David knew so well what to do for her, and he was so 
sweetly tender I Ah! It was nice—having David when 
her throat was bad. A Frenchman or an Englishman 
or even an American with an old world manner, could 
never guess so accurately when the cold compact needed 
changing. Of course, she could go to a hospital—but 
—well, this last time she would have David to care for 


SANDRA 


103 


her. She liked the touch of David’s fingers. Strange, 
how soothing they were! And his kiss never in the least 
annoyed her. Yes, she would miss David’s dear, clumsy 
fingers and she would miss David’s tender, unlover¬ 
like kisses. But when the fall came, she would be 
strong. She would go from him and —live her life! So 
much of it had gone already, and—the great vortex 
awaited her. She would be one with it in the fall! 

The fall had brought that letter from David’s Ver¬ 
mont cousin. The long-promised visit was to take place 
at once. That visit meant delay, but what mattered a 
few weeks more or less? When Jane and Larry had 
gone she herself would find it the easier to go. She 
would simply sail away to France and—never come 
back to—David and humdrum. 

And then before she knew it Christmas had crept 
upon her, and—David was such a boy about Christmas. 
His eyes had a way of glowing at this time like the eyes 
of a youngster who believes in Santa Claus. She 
wanted awfully to think of gifts that would bring a 
whoop out of David boy on Christmas morning. It was 
delightful having him catch her up in his arms and wet 
her cheek with his foolish tears! Oh! she could not go 
before Christmas! Not before Christmas! There 
would be so many Christmases for David when she 
would not be here to laugh with him. No. Not before 
Christmas. 

And so it had gone. Year after year there had been 
this secret vacillating. She had not thought all these 
things consciously, honestly, but as H. G. Wells might 
say: “In the Secret Places of the Heart.” Recently 
she had read his book under this title, and she had 


SANDRA 


104 

wondered a little that the restlessness of men could be 
described so nonchalantly, whereas to her knowledge no 
author had yet microscopically searched the closed 
chambers of the restless heart of woman. Was she, then, 
the only member of her sex who lacked the virtue of 
constancy? Was it possible that no other woman had 
in her veins the smoldering fires of the born philanderer? 
Men liked the taming of wild beasts—they enjoyed the 
risk of gambling—they thrived on danger—they played 
at love! Were women'—all women—expected to like 
only canary birds, pink teas, the safety of the guarded 
home, and but one man! 

Sandra shrugged her shoulders and made an impa¬ 
tient gesture. 

Absurd! Again and again she had found in the eyes 
of woman the hunted spirit like unto the which Gals¬ 
worthy had portrayed in the adventure-craving, dan¬ 
ger-inviting, love-playing hero of that splendid play 
“Loyalties.” 

The restless sex someone had called women of her 
kind. The sexless wrecks someone else had retorted 
smartly. And yet—nobody dared voice the belief that 
there could be women with spirits akin to the spirit of 
the man in Wells’ book who could not find contentment 
with one woman, or to that of the hero in Galsworthy’s 
“Loyalties” to whom adventure was the essence of life. 
Pseudo-realists! What might not Shaw do with an 
analysis of the average woman, could he come to know 
her! But women lied so successfully, even to themselves! 
And no doubt but that Shaw himself as a little boy was 
taught to view females as something peculiarly immune 
to the lusts that are common to males. 


SANDRA 


105 


“Only the Sphinx and I understand you, Sandra!” 
Green eyes looked into reflected green eyes and smiled 
tolerantly, and then again there was that swift impa¬ 
tient gesture. 

“Only the Sphinx and I and—” she frowned. “And 
Stephen Winslow!” she added reluctantly. 

Then as if he had caught her thought and wanted to 
corroborate it, Stephen Winslow was on the telephone 
waiting to speak to her. The trim French maid an¬ 
nounced the fact from the boudoir threshold. 

“Oh!” said Sandra as she seated herself at her tiny 
telephone table and put the receiver to her ear. “It is 
you! I was just thinking about you, Stephen.” 

“Of course you were, because I was thinking about 
you, Sandra,” returned Winslow’s smooth voice. 

“Indeed! Must I always think of you when you are 
thinking of me?” inquired Sandra ironically. 

“Always!” 

“Stephen, your egotism is almost intolerable.” 

“To everyone else perhaps. But you, Sandra,—you 
like it.” 

“Really!” 

“Enormously. It relates us so closely. Your own 
egotism-” 

“Mine!” 

“You don’t like my telling you that you, too, are 
ruled by egotism?” 

“I don’t like being told anything that is not true.” 

“Sandra dear,” Stephen’s voice grew tender, “you 
are so courageously honest with yourself in many re¬ 
spects. But some things you refuse to confess. You 
will not admit to yourself that you are happy with 



106 


SANDRA 


David, because your vanity, which no doubt you call a 
desire for romance, demands sentimentalities from 
many men.” 

Sandra’s breath caught in her throat. It was as 
though Stephen had peered into the darkest corners of 
her heart. How disconcerting was this weird power of 
his to read her! How horrible it would be to—to be¬ 
long to a man who would always know her every 
thought! 

“You’re nasty this morning, Steve. And I’m not in 
a patient mood. Why did you call meP Surely not to 
tell me of my unworthiness!” 

Stephen laughed. 

“No. You invited that. I called up,” he said, “to 
ask if you’ll ride in to the city with me this afternoon. 
You haven’t yet passed judgment on my new roadster. 
One doesn’t get a car from France every day, you know, 
and when one does-” 

“One’s egotism demands that-” 

“My egotism demands only your smiles and approval, 
Sandra.” 

“I smile at you often, Steve,” Sandra murmured 
softly, “but I do not approve of you. I simply can’t 
approve of you. What time shall you start?” she asked. 

“What time can you be ready?” 

Sandra glanced at the little clock on her dressing 
table. 

“Within an hour,” she said. “David went in by 
train this morning. Shall I phone him that we’ll call 
for him and drive him home?” 

There was a brief silence. Then Winslow replied, 




SANDRA 107 

and something was gone from his voice. It was still 
silken but it was no longer tender. 

“Of course—if you wish.” 

“I do wish, Steve.” 

After another silence. 

“Stephen!” 

“Yes.” 

“We might drive over to the club for dinner to¬ 
morrow night, if you’ve nothing else on.” 

“What will another engagement matter if I can make 
one with you!” 

“Thanks. You’re too extravagant with your flat¬ 
tery. It would be more convincing were it less exag¬ 
gerated,” remarked Sandra dryly. 

“I have to make up in compliments to you for those 
you withhold from me,” commented Stephen. “Shall 
you be wanting to have David along?” 

“Not to-morrow night. He’s taking the Stanley 
youngsters in to the city for an evening at some new 
skating rink—some indoor music-skating-one-dollar- 
per-person place. (I’ve asked David to teach Mate 
Stanley to skate.) And Mate’s brother has invited 
himself to accompany David and Mate. Bobbie sprained 
his wrist and is home from college on sick leave.” 

A faint indistinguishable sound came over the wire 
to Sandra. She could not be certain, but she thought 
the man at the other end had whistled softly. 

“Sandra,” he said after a moment, “I’ve wondered 
for months just what you were doing with that Stanley 
girl. And now suddenly I know. You’re putting her 
in training for David!” 

Sandra started. A chill swept through her. Her 


108 SANDRA 

eyes dilated—narrowed. A curious pain shot through 
her heart. 

“You’re being absurd again,” she protested coldly. 

“Ah!” ejaculated the voice at her ear. “Then it is 
true!” 

Sandra tried to speak—to laugh lightly. But her 
throat was tight. No sound would rise above it. “How 
clever you are, Sandra dear!” 

Sandra winced under the sting of his insolence. 

“How dare you say these things to me!” She man¬ 
aged at last to make her voice obey her will. “You are 
despicable! I hate you, you grinning satyr! You are 
not fit to speak David’s name! Do you hear? Oh! 
I—I hate you!” 

She snapped the receiver on to the hook and for a 
long interval sat staring at the instrument with eyes 
that were bright with some fierce emotion. Then her 
tense face relaxed to a twisted smile. 

“Only the Sphinx and I and—and Stephen Winslow 
understand you,” she mused a trifle uneasily. 

Ten minutes later she telephoned to Winslow quite 
as if there had been no disturbance between them. She 
would be ready, she told him, within the hour. 

“What do you think of her?” asked Winslow, as she 
stood near the half-bare maple trees surveying his new 
car. 

Sandra smiled. 

“It’s like you, Steve. Rakey, exquisitely polished 
and unreliable-looking.” 

“Unreliable! She purrs like a seaplane! What do 
you mean—unreliable?” 

“Oh!” Sandra folded her long sealskin wrap closer 


SANDRA 


109 


about her figure and, rubbing her chin caressingly back 
and forth along its sable collar, looked provocatively 
up at Stephen from above a wrinkled nose. “It looks 
as though it might run away with one—with little or 
no encouragement. And then-” 

“And then?” Winslow’s gaze looked her over de- 
nudingly. 

“And then,” went on Sandra, “it would be more than 
likely to tire of one and to end by running off an em¬ 
bankment into—oblivion.” 

The man laughed with seductive indulgence. 

“I love you in this mood, Sandra. And,” his eyes 
caressed her, “I love you in furs. You’ve no : dea,” he 
said, bending toward her, “what a maddening effect 
your chin rubbing that fur has on me.” 

Sandra glanced cautiously across her shoulder at 
the Stanley house. 

“Put me in, Steve. Eve Stanley may look out one 
of her windows and wonder what on earth we can be 
talking so seriously about.” 

Then, as Winslow turned to arrange the rugs in the 
car: 

“Do you like my hat, Stephen?” 

He straightened and looked at her. 

“It’s a confection, San. Peacock breasts! They 
are most apropos. Your eyes have all the peacock’s 
greens and blues. . . . You ought to wear earrings, 
San. You should affect the barbaric. I’ll buy you a 
pair of earrings to-day that, pendant along your white 
neck, will tap little tinkling calls against your pulses 
until all your sleeping savagery shall awaken.” 

“I don’t think I should permit you to buy the ear- 



110 


SANDRA 


rings,” she mused, as he lifted her in and bent to tuck 
the rugs around her. “But I shall. I think it will be 
rather exciting having you choose them and—and later, 
perhaps, having you fasten them in my ears.” 

Winslow did not answer at once. He swung his long 
graceful body into the seat beside her, and touched his 
foot to the starter-button. They were a mile down 
the road before he spoke and then he did not look at her. 

“I don’t see,” he said, “when I shall have the oppor¬ 
tunity.” 

“For what?” she asked, studying his handsome pro¬ 
file. 

“To fasten the earrings in your ears. Perhaps when 
we are in town—” He hesitated, skidded recklessly 
round another car that was in his path, honked his horn 
peremptorily at the huddled figure of a little old lady 
who was crossing the street just ahead of them, ran 
perilously near to her, and shot ahead at a still greater 
speed. 

“Gania Bartelle is at home to-day,” he began again. 
“I phoned her apartment this morning. Told her we 
were running in to the city. Said we might have a look 
in on her after lunch.” 

Sandra’s eyes narrowed speculatively. A faint smile 
played round her lips. 

“And you would—fasten on my earrings there,” she 
said thoughtfully. “No, Steve. That will not do. 
We’ll keep them until to-morrow night. You can put 
them on me when we leave the club house.” 

“Always suspicious!” laughed Stephen Winslow. 
“Always afraid of me!” 

“Yes,” agreed Sandra in much the same tone that 


SANDRA 


111 


William James Hapgood had once, under a similar chal¬ 
lenge, said the same word to her. “I am afraid of you* 
Stephen. I may come to you some day,” she went on 
simply, “but if I do, Steve dear, I must come of my own 
will and in a moment when I am absolutely sane. If I 
came to you when my senses were intoxicated, I should 
hate both you and myself when I had sobered. Do you 
understand, Stephen?” 

She put out a gloved hand and laid it on his arm. 

The man looked down at her hand in a sort of sigh¬ 
ing silence. 

Then: 

“Yes, San. I understand,” he said quietly. And 
after another brief silence: “But you will want to come. 
You were destined, Sandra, to be one with me.” 

They did not speak again for miles. 

“Steve,” they were on the outskirts of the city when 
Sandra began to plan her day, “we’ll lunch at the Am¬ 
bassador, and then you’ll go off and attend to your 
stupid old business, whatever it is that has brought you 
in, and I’ll shop. Later we’ll call for David and-” 

“I’ve no business,” cut in Winslow, “except you, 
Sandra. I’ll spend the day shopping with you. Will 
you let me buy you a hat?” 



CHAPTER IX 


“TAON’T be the least bit frightened,” advised 

B W David, as he kept Mate Stanley on her feet 
and steered her carefully along in the pro¬ 
cession of skaters. “Of course you will feel like a 
centipede for a while, but if you will keep your knees 
loose and try to get balance, you’ll be cutting figure 
eights in no time at all.” 

“Centipede is right!” called Robert, skating along 
beside them. “I never saw a girl with so many feet 
and legs. When they got tangled up back there a min¬ 
ute ago and she flopped, I counted at least ten pairs. 
No wonder dad’s trying to figure out why her shoe bills 
are so high. He’s never counted her feet.” 

“Well, I just guess,” panted Mate, clinging to David 
with spasmodic tension, her great brown eyes round 
with excitement, “that I don’t tangle my legs any more 
than anybody else who has ever learned to skate in this 
world. And I haven’t a single leg more than you have, 
Bobbie Stanley. 

“I don’t mind telling you and Mr. David, though, 
that I’ve just found out my feet are not mates. They’re 
acting as if they had never met before. And they don’t 
seem to care much for each other’s society. Look at 
them! Look what they’re doing now ! Stop the right 
one Bobbie. Stop it before it gets clear away from 
me!” 


112 


SANDRA 113 

Her brother skated close and gave David brief assist¬ 
ance, then he guffawed scornfully. 

“You ought to be home reading your old love-trash. 
As a skater you’re a knock-out.” 

“Is that so! Mate risked a fall to look contemptu¬ 
ously round at him. “Well I’d rather be a knock-out 
than be the wind end of a saxophone!” 

“Mate, dear!” 

“Well, honest, Mr. David, Bobbie Stanley makes me 
tired. He-” 

“Steady,” cautioned David. But he was too late, 
she had gone down in a little brown-cloth and beaver- 
fur heap, dragging him down with her. 

“That,” said David getting to his feet and lifting 
her up to hers, “was a sockdolager! Are you hurt any¬ 
where?” 

“She’s hurt in her feelings,” vouchsafed Robert. 
“Women’s vanity is more sensitive than their bodies.” 

“Isn’t Solomon wise!” mocked Mate, straining to 
manage a semblance of equilibrium. “Knows everything 
in this very world about women. He knows— Oh! Mr. 
David! Mr. David! It’s the left foot this time! 
It-” 

“Pardon us!” begged David politely of the chic girl 
skater they had fouled. He got Mate once more to an 
upright position and with Robert chorusing comments 
beside them, they made another start. 

“Why don’t you hire a lake for her, Mr. Waring. 
She needs room.” 

“Room!” scoffed Mate. “What I need is pneumatic 
ice!” she giggled. “Ice like rubber tires, you know, so’s 
it can be blown up. It wouldn’t be so hard.” 




114 


SANDRA 


“You mean,” corrected her brother, “inflated” 

“Pm* afraid you’ll be dreadfully sore to-morrow, 
Mate,” ventured David tentatively. “Hadn’t we better 
stop pretty soon?” 

“Not yet! Oh, please, Mr. David, not yet 1 Anyway, 

I don’t care if I’m sore. We have oodles of arnica and 
Sloane’s liniment at home, and-” 

“If there was a single spot on you that didn’t hit the 
ice every time you fall, you could carry a bottle of 
arnica right with you when you come skating,” observed 
Robert. “Bottles have a habit of breaking so easily.” 

“As I was saying, Mr. David. We have oceans of 
arnica at home. And it’ll take out every bit of my 
soreness except where I’m sore at my brother. When 
you’re sore that way, I guess even Sloane’s liniment 
isn’t much good!” 

David laughed. 

What a delightful youngster she was! What a pair 
they made—these Stanley children! Ripped the moss 
right off a fellow! The worries, too. 

He laughed again. And then as the music swung 
into the rhythmic strains of a waltz, he lifted Mate 
clear of the floor and glided joyously in and out through 
the maze of skaters to the end of the brilliantly lighted 
ice palace. He set her down with a boyish whistle. 

“Wasn’t that splendid?” he asked, his smile widen¬ 
ing as he looked down at her. 

The piquant face lifted to his was flushed, the brown 
eyes were curiously moist, the small mouth was trem¬ 
bling. 

“Do it again, Mr. David. Please! Before the music 
changes! It—it’s better than any kind of old regular 


SANDRA 115 

dancing. It— Oh! does it really seem awfully like 
heaven to—to you, Mr. David?” 

“It’s the next thing to feeling the wind tug at a sail, 
Mate. It’s the next thing to having a trout take your 
fly! And I suppose,” he added, noting the look of dis¬ 
appointment that shadowed the lifted face and wonder¬ 
ing vaguely what he had said to disappoint her, “that 
those things are akin to heaven.” 

“Yes,” replied Mate briefly, as he gathered her up 
again and slid into the gliding movement of a waltz. 

She leaned her cheek against his thick gray sweater, 
and sighed softly. 

And as they drove home a little later, Robert sat at 
the Waring wheel and Mate snuggled close to her won¬ 
derful Mr. David, who was aglow with re-awakened 
youth. He held the rugs tight around the little girl- 
woman who had told her mother that she wanted to look 
like Mrs. Sandra, to marry a man like Mr. David, and 
to have a lot of babies. 

David smiled to himself at memory of those words 
as Eve had said them to him. 

What a little mother she would be! This brown-eyed 
elfin who loved the wind and sea and the waltz in an ice 
palace. Bless her little heart! She was like Rusty 
already. Liked the very things he liked. Well—per¬ 
haps she would find a—a Mr. David and—have all 
those babies. And perhaps he and Rusty could go often 
and look at them, and if there happened to be a boy, 
he would teach him to swim and to skate, and maybe 
he would be allowed to train him in architecture. Maybe 
he would grow up to be the great architect that he— 
David—had meant to be. 


116 


SANDRA 


David sighed. Unconsciously his broad, loosely 
gloved hand patted the beaver-covered shoulder of the 
girl who appeared to be sleeping, and the girl, too, 
sighed, consciously, happily. 

It had begun to rain—a cold wet drizzle—and when 
the car drew up in front of the Stanley door, the maple 
trees glistened glassily in the glare of the motor-lamps. 
Robert insisted upon taking the car round to the garage 
back of the Waring house, and so it was that David 
helped Mate Stanley out of the car, and escorted her 
to the steps of the Stanley veranda. 

“It’s been wonderful, Mr. David!” she said, looking 
up at him with her starry eyes. “Let’s play like I’m 
really truly grown up and that you’re my fianc4. 
We’ve just come home from the most magnificent ball 
that ever there was in this very world, and—and you— 
you’re telling me good-night like they do in books.” 

“Like they do in—books! Oh!” Enlightenment 
came to David, and he smiled at the whimsy. He took 
one of her hands from which she had slyly drawn her 
glove, between his two big ones and bending over, kissed 
a dark curl that nestled against her forehead just below 
the edge of her beaver cap. 

“Good-night, adorable light-of-my-heart! I shall 
count the hours until we meet again.” Then: “Will 
that do?” he asked, chuckling at sound of the fool¬ 
ishness. 

“It would have done beautifully!” exclaimed Mate 
with a little impatient stamp of her foot. “But you 
went and spoiled it.” 

“Spoiled it!” 

“Yes. Spoiled it.” 


SANDRA 


117 


“Why, I kissed you and I said-” 

“You said,” mimicked Mate, stamping her small foot 
again, “ ‘will that do?’ just as if any kind of a stupid 
old sweetheart in a book ever asked such a silly thing 
as that!” 

“Shall we try it over again?” suggested David serf- 
ously. 

“No. I guess I better wait until I find a man like 
the heroes in books and movies.” 

“I’m sorry I made a mess of it,” soothed David, try¬ 
ing not to smile. “Well, anyway it shan’t keep us from 
having another skate together on Friday night.” 

He moved off down the walk, waving his hand to her. 

“He’ll have to look like you, though, Mr. David,” 
she called after him. “And he’ll have to golf like you 
and and skate like you, and—he’ll have to be more 
like you than—than anybody on this earth.” 

“Thanks,” laughed David across his shoulder, as he 
leaped the hedge and went up the steps of his own 
veranda. 

Sandra was waiting for him in his study. Actually 
it was Rusty who waited for him. Sandra never sat in 
his study, and seldom did Sandra wait for him—any¬ 
where. 


David warmed at sight of the light that came from 
his study door, and hurrying out of his damp coat and 
sweater, flung his cap into a corner of the wide hall, 
and strode into the oak and leather room with a joyous: 

Hullo! Waiting up for me! Looks great to see 
you sitting here in my old chair!” 

He went to her and leaning over kissed her smiling 
lips. 



H8 SANDRA 

“Great night out, Rusty! Million stars up to fifteen 
minutes ago, when all at once it began to rain. Don’t 
know where the clouds came from. But it’s been the 
kind of night poets rave about.” 

“I know,” affirmed Sandra, reaching up to pat his 
hand where it had come to rest on her shoulder. “I was 
out, too. Stephen Winslow took me to the club for 
dinner. There was a big fire in the fireplace of the club 
living room and we sat there all evening. I’ve been 
home only half an hour.” 

“Umm,” grunted David, seating himself in a wide 
leather chair an arm’s length away, and stretching his 
long legs out in front of him. 

“Anything new at the club?” he inquired without any 
real interest, as he reached to the table for a pipe and 
tobacco pouch that lay there. 

“No,” said Sandra looking at him meditatively. 
After a pause she asked: “Have a good time, David? 

“Corking!” He filled his briar pipe and lighted it. 

“Mate learn to skate?” 

“Well,” David chuckled, “she learned to fall without 
breaking her neck, and she found out how many legs 
she has.” 

«She—what? Oh!” Sandra smiled. Then: “I’m 
glad you enjoyed yourself, Peter Pan, with your little 
Tinkle Bell.” 

“Tinkle Bell!” 

“Yes,” said Sandra. “Don’t you know the story of 
Peter Pan and his Wendy and—and little Tinkle Bell?” 

“Maude Adams thing, wasn’t it?” 

“Yes. But first it was Barrie’s. It doesn’t matter 


SANDRA 


119 


though—the story. Only my Peter Pan matters right 
now.” 

After a long moment in which David, stretched out 
in his great chair looked almost moodily up at the cloud 
of smoke he was making, she said: 

“You’ve been worrying a lot lately, David. Is some¬ 
thing wrong?” 

David moved his head a little and looked intently 
down at his pipe. 

“Not much wrong. Not enough wrong for you to 
start worrying about, Rusty.” 

“But I want to know, David. I don’t want to be a 
Nora in a Doll’s house. I’ve the right to share your 
worries.” 

“Oh,” muttered David, “it’ll be all right soon. Fact 
is, we—we’ve been living rather extravagantly, and that 
theater cave-in last spring sort of hurt my reputation. 
Damned contractor’s fault! But what with little or no 
business coming into the office, just when I’d counted 
on landing several big jobs, and the bottom dropping 
out of two or three investments that I thought were 
solid, I’ve had to do some figuring and-” 

“And all the time I was buying more imported crea¬ 
tions with which to decorate myself, and urging you 
on to greater expenditures. . . . I’m sorry, David boy.” 

“Why, you’ve nothing to blame yourself for, Rusty 
darling. I’ll land a big job soon that’ll wipe out the 
memory of that cave-in. I’ll do a masterpiece of 
theater architecture that will give me a new reputation. 
See if I don’t.” 

Sandra stared at the toe of a yellow satin mule that 



120 SANDRA 

stuck out from beneath the gold velvet of the loose robe 
that enveloped her. 

“David, is it true that several damage suits against 
you and that—that ‘damned contractor,’ have ended 
with verdicts for the complainants?” 

“Who told you?” David looked round at her inquir- 
ingly. 

“Never mind now, dear. I want to know if it is true.’ 

“Well,” admitted David reluctantly, “they did get a 
couple of verdicts, but we’ve appealed the cases. They 
can’t win in another court.” 

“Lawyers are tremendously expensive,” pursued San¬ 
dra. “And you had good representation, I understand. 
No wonder my boy has been worried.” 

“Oh, it’s all going to be right. If I land that-” 

“Parker and Burke theater contract? Is that the 
big job you’re hoping to land, David?” 

“Where’d you hear about it?” David had leaned 
forward, resting his arms on his knees. He looked up 
at her now curiously, and she noticed for the first time 
that his eyes seemed haunted. 

“Stephen told me. He’s Parker’s nephew.” 

“Yes. That’s right. Heard something about the 
relationship. And I remember seeing him up in the 
Parker-Burke offices one day when I tried to get to 
Parker. Busiest place on earth, Rusty. You’ve no idea 
what a big theatrical syndicate with a long circuit of 
theaters is like when it comes to business. Tremendous 
financial organization! Offices like drawing rooms for 
a Czar. 

“You see, Rusty,” he rapped the pipe from which 
the grayed ashes had already fallen, sharply against 



SANDRA 


121 


the edge of the table, his face alight with pathetic 
eagerness, “if I can get Parker and Burke to let me 
build this big New York theater, I’ll land all their 
business. Why, Rusty, do you know what that would 
mean! Three or four big theaters a year! My name 
all over the country. They’re going to start building 
hotels, too. Organizing another company for that. 
Theatrical hotels—big ones—beautiful, palatial ones! 
They re no pikers, Rusty. They talk money in millions. 
See what it would mean for us? You get it, don’t you, 
dear?” 

“I see what it would mean, David. It’s the biggest 
opportunity you’ve ever had, isn’t it?” 

“Yes,” replied David, his enthusiasm melting a trifle. 
“But it’s scarcely an opportunity after all, Rusty. 
Course I sent perspectives—best things I’ve ever done! 
But there are a dozen other architects after the job. 
Soon as word went around that Parker and Burke had 
quit Ned Hallen, every architect in town who had ever 
done a theater got busy. Two or three of them have 
a lot of pull. Friends or fellow club members of either 
Parker or Burke. So I have a fat chance to get a look- 
in. Couldn’t even get to see Parker, though I’ve been 
to his office twice. Like trying to see an emperor. 

Still”—a gleam of hope came back into his eyes_“I 

guess at that I can-” 

He stopped short and began to refill his pipe. 

“Would it—would it make you very happy—this 
Parker and Burke business, David?” 

He glanced up animatedly. 

“Say! Wouldn’t it, though!” He held a lighted 
match in his hand and forgot it until it burned his 



122 SANDRA 

fingers. “I’d build a theater,” he said, tossing the 
charred match to a tray on the table, “that would warm 
the sorrowing spirits of the ancient Greeks! 

“Then you feel, David boy, that it’s your chance to 
become the great architect you used to dream of one 
day becoming.” 

David rumpled his shock of hair and laughed a shy, 
apologetic laugh. 

“Well, it would give me the chance to become nation¬ 
ally known.” 

“That would be splendid. To build beautiful build¬ 
ings —to create structures that the nation would call 
frozen music! Why success of that kind—the intense 
satisfaction that it will bring to your artist-soul, will 
fill all your needs ! I mean,” Sandra was looking at him 
earnestly, her lips parted in that sort of breathlessness 
which seemed to come to her when she was over stimu¬ 
lated with excitement, “that—had this kind of success 
come to you—before you—before you met me, it might 
have made me—that is, love for me—unnecessary, 
almost impossible.” 

“Oh,” mused David abstractedly, “I suppose art does 
become mistress, love, everything to the man who really 
puts the best part of himself into it.” 

“And if it doesn’t,” went on Sandra inexorably pres¬ 
sing her point, “there is always youth worshipfully 
offering itself to the man who has become great. Youth 
is entertaining, diverting, amusing. The years one has 
apprenticed to art slough off under the rejuvenating 
influence of youth’s gay, intrepid laughter. A man can 
afford to-” 

“That’s true!” exclaimed David, awakening suddenly 



SANDRA 


123 


to her words. “That last—the thing you said about— 
about youth being rejuvenating. True / By George! 
Do you know, Rusty, those Stanley kids made me forget 
to-night, all about the mess I’m in. Had me going it 
like a house afire! Even had a Romeo scene with Mate, 
on her front steps. Play-acting, you know! Funny, 
what youth can do to a fellow when he’s-” 

“I’m glad you are susceptible to its lure, David. If 
it should fail you— But it won’t! It will make up to 
you for—for anything that—that you might come to 
—miss,” put in Sandra, suddenly and inexplicably tired. 

She had said she was glad. Was she? Or had she 
begun to lie to herself. She did not know. She was 
overcome with an amazing inertia which made all 
thought on the matter peculiarly painful. She felt 
oddly driven, hunted, harried by some dread monster 
of her own creating. 

“And this theater,” she resumed with an effort, “will 
it be Corinthian, David? Corinthian—with the usual 
decorative detail of acanthus leaves? Or will it be—” 
She was finding coherent speech difficult. Words as she 
spoke them sounded meaningless, and her voice came 
to her ears from a great distance. She put an elbow 
on the table and leaning her tawny head in her hand, 
moistened her lips and went on determinedly, in her eyes 
the sightless look that comes to the eyes of a soldier 
when he is forging blindly, numbly into the jaws of 
death. 

“Or will it be a Parnassian monument with all the 
Muses represented in figures of chiseled stone above the 
proscenium arch? Or a Parthenon?” she persisted, 
dimly conscious of the man’s glowing eyes and of his 





124 


SANDRA 


smile of enthusiasm, and trying ferociously to inflame 
to a hot fire of hope the kindling she had lighted. 

“A tribute to—to Minerva! Or perhaps,” she sug¬ 
gested, “it is to be Romanesque or Renaissance. Cer¬ 
tainly you would not follow any style this side the 
fifteenth century, would you, David? The average 
American theater smells too much of varnish. And it’s 
almost always bastard, mongrel! The average archi¬ 
tect-” 

“That’s it!” vociferated David, hammering his fist 
on the table. “They adulterate—mix periods and 
styles ! It’s positively maddening, Rusty! Why! If 
I could do that theater for Parker and Burke-” 

“Don’t let’s say e if,’ David,” she said, rising and 
standing like a golden princess in front of him. “Let’s 
pull for it—mentally. I—I’m sure you’ll get your 
chance.” 

She made a pretense of jmwning behind a lifted, lace- 
draped arm, smiled apologetically with lips that were 
annoyingly stiff, and shook her head whimsically when 
David rose and made as if to accompany her. 

“Good-night, Peter Pan!” She lifted her lovely 
face to his kiss. “I’m going up to sprinkle fairy dust 
on my windowsill.” 

“Fairy dust!” puzzled David. 

“Don’t be stupid, David dear. Have you never 
heard of Peter Pan’s fairy dust? Sprinkled on a win¬ 
dowsill, fairies can fly into one’s chamber, or one can 
fly a—away to the—the Never-never land!” 

“You’re as bad as Mate Stanley,” laughed David 
tenderly. “Never’ll grow up, will you, Rusty? Except, 




SANDRA 125 

by George! whenever that Sandra person influences 
you.” 

“She’s not so terrible. Really, David!” Sandra’s 
eyes were stinging as though someone had flung a hand¬ 
ful of salt into them. “She’s just a little mad—just a 
little mad, David. Wants to cut her doll open and— 
and empty out its sawdust. Obsessed with the idea that 
the world is keeping something from her. Funny, isn’t 
it, David?” Her voice had risen to the crescendo of a 
thin flute note, but with the last three words it sank to 
a throaty whisper. She caught his arm and clung to 
it convulsively. 

“I’ve tried to—to dissuade her. I’m so afraid, 
David. I’m so afraid. Sometimes in the night when 
she’s not on guard, I get thinking about her and—and 
suddenly a chill, wintry wind seems to blow over me, 
and a formless, hideous specter comes and grins at me. 
I don’t see it. Just —feel it! And— Oh, David, it— 
it terrifies me so! The other night when I came to your 
room and crawled into your bed with you—remember, 
David? I’d been thinking about—about Sandra and— 
and what she might do to—herself and—and to me. 
You were too sleepy to know how I was trembling. But 
I clung to you there in the dark, David. I was fright¬ 
ened. I—I thought—something was going to—to take 
me away from you. 

“I went to sleep finally. And I awoke in the morning 
to find you sitting up in bed and smiling down at me. 
And you had drawn the curtains and you said—you 
said my hair was a glorious aureole there on your pillow 
with the morning sunshine on it. David,” she met his 
gaze imploringly, “will you—will you please forget that 


SANDRA 


126 

1—that I answered what I—did. I said that your 
words would have done Stephen Winslow credit. San¬ 
dra made me—say that. Yet even Sandra herself will 
always remember your shy tendernesses and your dear 
honest love phrases. I’ll not let her forget them. And, 
oh, David! David! don’t let youth or—or art or any¬ 
thing make you forget me— Rusty! Remember always, 
the days when I sailed with you, David, and fished with 
you and—and swam with you. Remember that night 
down by Montauk Point, David?” she asked breath¬ 
lessly. 

David’s puzzled face cleared. This was something 
he could understand. He did wish Rusty would elimi¬ 
nate Sandra’s Greek. 

“When you slid out of your yellow nightgown 
and-” 

“And swam with you, David, in the silver moonpath. 
We were Adam and Eve, and even the sharks dared not 
touch us. You’ll remember, won’t you? You will! 
You will, won’t you, David?” 

“Till I’m a handful of dust!” laughed David indul¬ 
gently, a little worried frown gathering on his brow. 

“You’ve a fever,” he said, touching a hand to her 
cheek where a flush dyed crimson her wonted pallor. 

“It’s that theater, Dave. The theater you’re going 
to build. I’m on fire with the thought of what it will 
mean to you and—to—to me. I’ll stand in front of it 
sometimes—thousands of times! and I’ll look up at it 
like—like you once said we’d look up at the master¬ 
piece built by our might-have-been-son—remember, 
David? with tears of—of pride in my eyes. And I’ll 
be saying to myself-—I’ll be saying: ‘This is his 



SANDRA 


127 


work! My—David boy built this!* And, oh! David, 
if—if you—if you shouldn’t be there to—to squeeze 
my hand-” 

“But I shall be!” interrupted David stoutly. “Who¬ 
ever said I wouldn’t be?” 

“Sandra!” whispered the dry lips that smiled up at 
him. “Sandra!” 

But David did not hear, and before he knew that she 
was going she had flown to the door, paused and looked 
intently, mistily back at him, and was gone. 



CHAPTER X 


U PSTAIRS in her room Sandra picked up from 
her writing desk where she had tossed it when 
she had come home from the club, a small 
morocco box. She pressed a thumb to a tiny spring 
and the lid flew open, displaying on a bed of white velvet, 
a pair of carved jade earrings. She looked down at 
them with intense concentration. 

Stephen Winslow’s face was mirrored against the 
chill polished green. Stephen Winslow’s face as it had 
looked when she had said to him at dinner: “Steve, if 
what you have told me is true, and if—you will get 
that theater contract for David, you can put those ear¬ 
rings in my ears at—any place you say.” 

“You mean—” He had leaned across the table, a 
little white and visibly trembling. 

She had nodded her head gravely. 

“You’ve told me a lot of things,” she had continued, 
“that I would already have known had I been less blind 
through selfishness, and you’ve made it plain—unfor¬ 
givably, hatefully plain—that for David you would not 
exert the least pressure of influence. You have prac¬ 
tically said that David’s success or—his complete fail¬ 
ure, is up to me. 

“Knowing you as I do, Stephen, I make no futile 
attempt to plead with you. I should have your jeering 
laughter for my pleas. So”—she had reached a hand 
128 


SANDRA 


129 


across the table and taken up the jewel box—“we’ll not 
don these trinkets, Steve, until David has a contract 
dated and signed, with Parker and Burke, for the build¬ 
ing of that theater on which he has set his heart.” 

“I’ll get Dave Waring the contract, Sandra!” His 
eyes had glistened like cabochoms of jet, his delicate 
nostrils had quivered under stress of his too rapid 
breathing. 

“And you—you’ll keep your word, Sandra?” he had 
asked. 

<( You’ve offered to—to sell me something. You de¬ 
mand an unfair price. But”—she had seemed to hear 
David sighing—“I shall pay it, Steve.” 

She stared broodingly down at the jade baubles that 
lay now in the hollow of her hand. They were symbols. 
They were the tangible pledge between Stephen Wins¬ 
low and herself. 

“Poor old David !” she whispered. “Poor Peter Pan! 
And never would he have told me! Never would he have 
asked me to share his worry. Oh, David! David! David! 
It’s come! The signal! And it’s this! This!” 

David telephoned to her from his office at eleven- 
thirty the next morning. His voice boomed across the 
wire excitedly. Its first word—her name—told her that 
Stephen Winslow had lost no time. 

“Rusty!” he cried. “What do you think! I’ve 
landed it! The Parker-Burke theater! Contract being 
drawn up now. Sign it within an hour. Came like a 
shot. About an hour ago Parker called me up and 
asked me to come over. I burned up the sidewalk be¬ 
tween my office and here—I’m in their offices now— 
booth phone—outside wire. Saw Winslow going out; 


130 


SANDRA 


as I came in. He seemed surprised to see me. Won’t 
he be amazed, Rusty, when he hears that I’ve got the 
biggest plum ever let out of his uncle’s office ? Say 1 
Won’t he, by George!” He was laughing boisterously. 

Sandra moistened her lips, and looked dizzily into 
the transmitter. 

“That’s wonderful, David! I—I’m so happy—for 
you, David”—she managed to keep her voice steady, 
but there was a tightening at her throat—“you know 
that I’m happy for—for you, don’t you?” 

“Sure! We’ll celebrate to-night, Rusty! Have a 
regular blowout! Better take an afternoon train in, 
and meet me at the Astor. And if there’s anything 
you want to buy—you know, a new evening gown or— 
fancy whatnot—go to it, Rusty. We’re going to be 
rich after to-day, girl. Going to build theaters and 
hotels all over the United States. But what’s best 
about it all,” his voice broke a little, “is that I’m going 
to do the great things I’ve always dreamed of doing. 
And we’ll go and look at them, together—you and I, 
and we’ll-” 

“Oh, I’ll be looking at them often, David. I’ll lean 
my cheek against a great fluted pilaster and whisper— 
things to it. And maybe I’ll be wishing—Oh, David! 
Maybe I’ll be wishing we were back again to the old 
days when-” 

“Not in a thousand years! Why, Rusty, I’m going 
to conceive and build-” 

“Frozen music! I know, David boy. You’ll be the 
twentieth century Michael Angelo. And I’ll be so proud 
of you, dear.” 

“Oh, I won’t be as great as all that,” he answered 





SANDRA 


131 


modestly and a trifle self-consciously. “But I’ll stand 
for pure architecture! Well,” he said, “I’ll have to 
ring off. Like to tell you about the contract, hut you 
wouldn’t understand. You shouldn’t be bothered with 
such things anyway. You don’t have to do a thing 
about the whole business but be glad. Of course, San¬ 
dra will be glad, too! Even she can celebrate a little 
if she wants to. But don’t let’s have her with us to¬ 
night at the Astor. Has she been around this morn¬ 
ing? Been talking any more of that nonsense about 
cutting open her doll? Rot! I don’t think she ever 
had a doll in her life! Probably sneered at yours when 
you were both little! Doll! Sawdust!” He laughed 
unroariously. “Fairy— What was it she was going 
to make you sprinkle on your windowsill?” 

“Fairy dust.” 

“And did you?” he inquired chuckling. 

“Yes.” 

“Well, don’t let her make you do anything you don’t 
want to do. Tell her it’s your house, Rusty. I didn’t 
marry her! Don’t see why she sticks around like she 
does. If only she’d run away! Only trouble about that 
is—she’d take you along. Wish me good luck, Rusty. 
Going to sign up now! By George! I’m pinching 
myself to see if I’m awake and not just dreaming.” 

Sandra’s throat muscles contracted painfully. The 
transmitter at which she was staring was blurred and 
indistinct. 

“I—do wish you gpod luck, Peter Pan! Always— 
always I shall be wishing good luck for you.” 

• “Sounds funny, the way you put it. But I guess 
you’re like me. So excited about this theater that you 


132 


SANDRA 


can’t even talk straight. I’ll call you up again in an 
hour or two. Fix it up about our celebration. 
Good-by.” 

“Good-by,” whispered Sandra, her voice gone, her 
eyes smarting. 

The telephone receiver had scarcely touched the 
hook, when the bell rang again shrilly. 

Sandra did not move. She sat looking abstractedly 
at the instrument, her face white, her eyes dilated. 

The bell continued to ring insistently. 

She lifted off the receiver at last and said the cus¬ 
tomary “Hello!” 

“I’ve kept my word!” It was Stephen Winslow, and 
it was as though he were speaking of the weather. 

“I know,” replied Sandra faintly. 

“He’ll have his contract within an hour.” 

“Yes. He has just told me.” 

“I shall call for you in the car at four o’clock. We’ll 
have dinner at the Brevoort, and then-” 

“Yes! Yes!” Sandra cut him off sharply. Then: 
“Wouldn’t to-morrow do, Stephen? He—he’s asked 
me to—to celebrate with him to-night.” 

“I don’t like to-morrows, San. They’re too vague.” 

“Then you insist!” 

“I never insist. I beseech ,|” he mocked. 

Sandra closed her eyes and leaned her forehead 
against the black rubber transmitter. 

“I might have known that Shylock would show no 
leniency.” 

“What did you say, San? Your voice sounds faint. 
Speak into the phone, Sandra dear.” 

She lifted her head slowly. 



SANDRA 


133 


“I said,” a twisted smile had come to her lips, “that 
I’d be ready. I’ll meet you at the turn of the road. 
You mustn’t stop here.” 

For an hour she wandered around the house brood- 
ingly, pausing here and there to touch her fingers ten¬ 
derly to some article of furniture—some relic of her 
married life with David, lingering sorrowfully in the 
study of Jacobean oak and russet leather, pressing a 
cheek caressingly to one or two much-thumbed books 
on theater-architecture that protruded from a shelf, 
and carrying back to her own room an old briar pipe 
in which was still embedded the ash of last night’s fire. 

And then she was in the rakey roadster with Stephen 
Winslow, her overnight bag on the floor at her feet, 
and Stephen was telling her how beautiful she looked, 
and how silly she had been not to allow him to buy 
her a hat. 

“I’ve really awfully good taste,” he was saying. “As 
you know, San, I’m something of a critic of women’s 
clothes. And that reminds me-” 

But she was not listening. She was thinking about 
David and wondering if he would be much disappointed 
when his secretary gave him the message she had left 
when she had telephoned and found him not in his office. 
She had said only that she could not meet him. He 
would wonder, of course. He would probably come 
home early. He would rush into the house and take 
the steps three at a time, calling out to her as he came. 
And then—up there in her room—he would find her 
note. . . . 

“Stephen! Stephen!” she cried suddenly. “I’m mad! 



134 SANDRA 

Let me out! Please, Stephen, before it’s too late. I 
want to go back!” 

“Mad! So am I, San. But you told me once that 
you had always to go on and on. That you could 
never turn back. There’d be an emptiness about any¬ 
thing that you—went back to. Remember telling me 
that ?” 

“Yes.” Her small chin lifted. She loosed the furs 
at her throat and looked steadily ahead. “Yes. You’re 
right, Steve. I’ve started. I must go on. If I went 
back, I should always be haunted, harassed with 
thoughts of what-might-have-been. I’ll never want yes¬ 
terday—I’ll never be content with now. Anticipation! 
It is that on which I live. Stephen—more’s the pity. 
Realization! It is disappointing—always !” 

“Not for me,” replied Stephen Winslow. “To me 
there is no past and no future. Therefore I have 
neither regrets nor hopes. Who was it said: 

‘Live not for the past nor the future, 

The present is all thou hast. 

For the future will soon be the present 

And the present will soon be the past.’ ” 

“I don’t know,” replied Sandra. “It’s true. But 
there is such a glamour around the future. It can 
promise so much!” 

“And fulfill so little! The difficulty with most peo¬ 
ple, Sandra, is that they do not know they are having 
a good time at the time they are having it. They’re 
either looking ahead to to-morrow or backward to yes¬ 
terday. In retrospect they come to know how happy 


SANDRA 135 

they were at the time when they were least conscious 
of it.* 

“But I don’t want ever to—to look backward, Steve. 
I never have looked backward. If I began to do it now, 
it would be suicidal. I—I’ve burned my bridges.” 

“You mean”—Stephen Winslow turned and looked 
at her—“that you will never return to David?” 

She inclined her head. 

Winslow stared at her for a moment, then he looked 
back again at the road, a line between his dark eyes. 

“But I had thought you would make some excuse for 
—for the night, and go home in the morning!” he 
hazarded slowly. 

“Then,” said Sandra enigmatically smiling round at 
him, “it is only the Sphinx and I!” 

“The Sphinx and you—what?” 

“Who understand— me —Sandra!” 

“But why should I suppose-” 

“If you really understood me, Steve, you would have 
known that I couldn’t stay on with David after I had 
—had been faithless to him!” 

“You women!” cried her companion, taking a corner 
on two wheels. “How cleverly you dodge an issue with 
your conscience. How easily you manufacture excuses. 
You are inconstant in a thousand ways, drawing the 
line at but one brand of faithlessness. If you keep your 
bodies virtuous, you are clean according to your stand¬ 
ards though your hearts be brothel beds.” 

Sandra flinched. 

“You are right,” she conceded after a moment’s 
deliberation. “We’re inconsistent. But—well, I 



136 SANDRA 

couldn’t stay there. I’ve come away to pay the price 
of his success.” 

“And now you are trying to sanctify your abandon¬ 
ment of David. Trying to make yourself and me be¬ 
lieve that generosity motivated it.” Winslow laughed 
scathingly. “You’ve not martyred yourself, Sandra 
dear. You’ve done what for years you’ve consciously 
or unconsciously dreamed of doing. You’ve only just 
come upon a reason that can be made to justify your 
act. Thank me, San darling, for having provided a 
key to the exit.” 

“If all this is true, then why,” asked Sandra, eyeing 
him intently, “am I so unhappy at this moment?” 

“Oh,” a gauntleted hand left the steering wheel and 
came down to her lap to press her interlocked fingers, 
“because you are breaking off a habit. Habits are 
tyrannical. They bind one to them. I’ve seen a man 
weep at the death of a yellow cur dog. The dog had 
been his habit. I’ve seen-” 

“Stephen!” Sandra flung his hand off impatiently. 
“You’re devoid of all the finer sensibilities. You say 
beautiful things to women, you have a vocabulary that 
is peculiarly plastic to the phrasing of flattering sen¬ 
tences. But you lack sympathy, Steve.” 

“You wouldn’t have me maudlin, would you, San?” 

“I would have you able to sense what it means to me 
to leave that house back there. To you I am a dissatis¬ 
fied wife run away, therefore I am an evil, immoral 
woman, without either heart or conscience. I would 
have you know that my breast is heavy with tears! 

“I would have you,” she went on, “sorry for David, 
as I am sorry!” 



SANDRA 


137 


“Merciful heavens!” Winslow whistled. “What au¬ 
dacity women have! They run away from a husband 
and then ask the man who profits by the husband’s 
loss to be sorry for him. Really, San, you’re too ex¬ 
quisitely inconsistent. And I—I would not have you 
different. You are you! Incomparable! Enigmatic! 
Daring! The gods are kind to me.” 

He sent the car to a greater speed, and bent intently 
over the wheel. 

“In a few hours I shall hold you in my arms, Sandra. 
I shall put those jade things in your lovely ears. I 
shall lift your hair and kiss the ears first and then-” 

“Don’t! I— Please let’s talk of something else, 
Steve.” 

“Still breaking off the habit of David! Still hurting? 
Never mind, Lady of the Nile. Just be careful to keep 
your eyes bright. And by the way”—he had turned 
his head and was looking at her again—“better rouge 
up a little before we get in. You look like the ghost of 
my vivid Sandra.” 

Sandra opened her vanity case and inspected her 
face. Then mechanically and with deft precision she 
penciled her long lashes, dusted a tiny rouge puff to her 
pale cheeks and drew a gold-encased lipstick across her 
thin lips. 

“Better?” she asked, touching his arm with the edge 
of her vanity case. 

He bent his head and surveyed her lifted face. 

“Much! What a difference a bit of rouge makes!” 

“Does it!” Sandra shivered. To David she had 
always looked best in the early morning before she had 
applied the arts of make-up. He had said more than 



138 


SANDRA 


once that she was loveliest when she climbed aboard the 
yawl glisteningly wet from a dive into the sea. But then 
—David was old-fashioned. He was—Oh, yes—David 
was hopelessly old-fashioned. It was good for a woman 
to be with critical men. Kept her young. David would 
probably have been blind to any marks of age when 
they came to her. He would still have thought her 
hair a “glorious aureole” long after it had turned white 
or had streaked under a cleverly applied stain. Never 
would she have been anything but beautiful to David. 

She sighed. Her hands clenched spasmodically. 
Relaxed. 

Well, she was still young—at least she was not old— 
and with life beckoning to her around a thousand cor¬ 
ners—down a thousand mysterious byways, youth would 
be yet hers for a very long time. 

“I sent my trunks in,” she remarked irrelevantly. 

“You did! Where?” 

“Grand Central. I—thought that best,” she ex¬ 
plained falteringly. “That way—I leave no trail.” 

“What will you do?” Winslow inquired, slowing down 
a little and listening intently for her answer. 

“I—don’t know yet.” 

“Will you stay with me, Sandra?” 

She did not reply at once, but stared ahead at the 
architectural approach to Queensboro Bridge. 

“No, Stephen,” she said at last, as they swept on to 
the bridge and the seething street beyond the river 
came into view. “I shall want more than just you—I 
shall want to be free to explore, Stephen. I—I’ve just 
escaped bondage, and I’m wanting that vague some¬ 
thing that sends men off to sea in sailing vessels. You 


SANDRA 139 

can’t understand. I myself do not understand. I want, 
Steve, to have no permanent anchorage.” 

“You’ll change your mind, San. You and I were 
destined for each other. You’ll not want to leave me. 
Ever!” 

“Do you care, Steve? Do you?” 

Stephen Winslow, at a gesture from a traffic officer, 
slowed up impatiently and with a smothered oath. He 
did not answer. His attention was riveted to the con¬ 
gested street. 

“You do care, don’t you, Steve dear?” 

“For you? Of course. Why do you ask?” 

“Why,” said Sandra a little surprised, “because I 
like to hear you say it.” 

The car shot ahead, slowed up just in time to avoid 
a collision, jumped into high speed again.” 

“I like saying it, too,” he said. “Sorry I was sar¬ 
castic about you’re being cut up—leaving David’s house 
and all that. You were gallant, San. I admit that you 
were finely gallant.” 

“Thanks,” she said briefly. 

There was a tedious drive down Fifth Avenue, with a 
silent, tedious, self-conscious dinner at the Brevoort, 
then they were alone in Gania Bartelle’s studio apart¬ 
ment facing Washington Square. 

Winslow had fitted a key into the lock and had swung 
the high walnut door wide with a grandiloquent flour¬ 
ish. 

“Madame, ruler of my heart, will you do me the 
honor to enter?” He set down her bag and bowed low 
before her. 

Sandra glanced swiftly round. She was frightened. 


140 


SANDRA 


Trembling. Had anyone seen them enter? Who— 
what sort of persons occupied these other apartments? 
Why had Gania given Winslow her key? And why was 
Stephen Winslow jesting in this moment when he should 
be only solicitous of her comfort? 

“Where is Gania?” she asked, hurrying past him 
across the threshold, and looking round the shadowy 
room that was dimly lit by the light from a street lamp 
just outside the high French windows. 

Winslow shrugged. 

“Gone to Lake Placid. Says she’s fond of skiing. 
Lake Placid is the winter haunt of rich men. Women 
like our Gania have discovered what delights are to be 
had skiing, skijoring and—all that.” 

He switched on the lights with a wall button near 
the door, closed the door and silhouetted himself 
against its dark panels. 

“But her maid! Where’s Gania’s maid ?” 

One must put up a front, my dear, when one goes 
skiing in the haunts of rich men.” 

“Stephen,” Sandra stood irresolute in the center of 
the room, “you’re talking like a cad.” 

“No, Pm not,” he defended. “I’m being frank. We’ve 
always been frank with each other, you and I. Haven’t 
we?” 

Oh, I suppose so. Yes.” She was looking at him 
uneasily. 

“Why did she give you a key to her apartment, 
Steve?” she inquired curtly. 

“Told her I wanted to spend a few days in town, 
and couldn’t find a decent apartment for such a short 
term. Naturally, Gania-” 


SANDRA 


141 


“I see.” 

“And now—we’re here!” he said. “You and I, San! 
Think of it! You and I, with all the rest of the world 
shut out!” 

He drew off his gloves, slid out of his ulster, and flung 
them, together with his soft hat, into a chair near by. 
Then he came to her, his arms outstretched. 

“Not just yet, Steve. Give me a little more—time.” 
She smiled up at him half-apologetically. 

“Time! Why, Sandra, darling, already you’re years 
late! Come, let me unfasten your wraps.” 

With tender masterfulness he removed the fur coat 
from her passive form, lifted the small, rakish velvet 
hat from her head, tossed them both onto a table, 
closed the blinds at the windows and coming back to 
her, drew her into his arms and pressed his lips to her 
unresponsive mouth. 

“What is it? San darling! What is it? This is the 
great moment come at last! Aren’t you happy?” 

“No. No, I—I’m not happy. I’m sorry, Steve. I’m 
willing to go on—willing to keep my part of the bar¬ 
gain, but—but I’m filled with a hideous feeling of re¬ 
vulsion, Stephen. I don’t hate you. I don’t hate my¬ 
self. I’m just sorry for—us, Stephen. Sorrier for us 
somehow, than I am for David, who is probably at this 
moment half mad with a breaking heart.” 

Stephen Winslow’s arms fell inertly from her, and 
his graceful figure stiffened perceptibly. He took a 
step backward and looked at her wonderingly. 

“And I thought you were the feminine counterpart 
of me! I thought,” he exclaimed frowningly, “that you 
were intensely human under your veneer—that once 


142 


SANDRA 


alone together, you and I—fierce fires of passion would 
fuse us into one being! And in our first moment you 
lie in my arms like a prettily carved wooden image, 
and you tell me—you tell me you are filled with— 
revulsion !” 

“I’m sorry,” repeated Sandra almost humbly. 

“Sorry! I’m not like you, San. I do not ask for 
sympathy!” 

“I don’t know what I can say,” she ventured falter- 
ingly. “I’ve told you that I’m willing to—to go 
on-” 

“Do you think I would have you—this way, San¬ 
dra?” He drew himself a little further from her. 
“Why,” he said, pointing toward thq windows, “I 
would find a winter’s snow-drift in the park out there 
more to my liking than the arms of a passionless 
woman. The cold of it would be more tolerable.” 

“Mais qui vovlez vans!" She felt guiltily guilty and 
she wondered that she should feel apologetic for her 
lack of responsiveness. And the wonder stained her 
cheeks with a shamed flush. 

“Is it,” she asked, trying to be nonchalant, “that 
your conceit would have me throw myself melodramat¬ 
ically upon your neck?” 

Stephen looked at her appraisingly, listened to her 
abstractedly. 

Her voice played with his imagination. Words—any 
words—from her lips were flashes of color pigments. 
The slightest movement of her lithe body was a vague, 
fascinating suggestion. Her black lace dinner gown 
was a seductive gesture. She piqued every fiber of his 
being. 



SANDRA 


143 


Sandra looked back at him confusedly. Never had 
her poise been so shaken, yet never had her mind been 
so acutely clear. She measured Stephen Winslow. 
Looked at him as she had never before looked at him. 
And though she saw a Stephen other than the one 
whom she had hitherto known, she was still afraid 
of him, still conscious of his idomitable charm. 

There was about him a careless elegance. His clothes 
represented the last degree in sartorial estheticism and 
they were distinctly a part of him. He had said that 
he had forgotten all yesterdays, and she knew that he 
was suavely indifferent to all to-morrows. Even a 
to-day was to him but the immediate hour. She smiled 
understandingly. What a debonair, devil-may-care fel¬ 
low he was! Like her father, she thought. 

His olive-skinned, dark-eyed, sardonic face smiled 
habitually a lazy, satiric smile. His thin lips parted, 
showed a row of teeth that were startling in their white¬ 
ness. His hands were long, narrow and colorless and 
they were curiously attractive. His hair was- 

“You talk of love!” he was saying scornfully. “I 
don’t ask you for love. What you want is the excite¬ 
ment of making men love you that you may wring from 
them sentences that will feed your vanity. What 
women choose to call love, is something less fine even 
than the thing for which I have asked you. You de¬ 
mand the flattering lies of sentimentality. I demand 
the satisfying truths of nature. Love!” he laughed 
contemptuously. 

“You sneer at love!” breathed Sandra in pained 
amazement. “What is it, then, that you—feel for— 
me?” 



144 


SANDRA 


“Ah!” he looked at her through narowed lids, sharp 
consciousness of their safe privacy taunting his senses. 
“For you, San,” his voice was suddenly thick—the 
muscles in his lean face were twitching, “I feel poignant 
vibrations of the flesh. You please me—Oh, ineffably! 
You irritate me delightfully. You are as—as becom¬ 
ing to me,” he laughed drunkenly, “as a garment made 
by my best tailor!” 

“Oh!” gasped Sandra, leaning against the table. 

“You interest me,” he went on, coming a step nearer 
to her, “tremendously, like a Chinese puzzle that only 
I, in all this world of men, can solve. “This,” he said 
insinuatingly, “is profoundly soothing to my vanity.” 

Sandra stared at him, a feeling of nausea convulsing 
her vitals. 

“So! And I have come away from—from love at its 
finest—to—to this!” 

“You have come away from boredom to romance! 
From atrophying languor of the senses to stimulating 
excitements! From breakfast gruel to the champagne 
of midnight gayeties! You have come out of anseesthe- 
sia into sharp consciousness!” 

“And I thought—” she burst forth into wild, unre¬ 
strained laughter. “Oh, I thought you were offering 
me a great love—the divine passion!” She laughed 
again mirthlessly. “It was not you that attracted me 
— ever. It was what you stood for. Adventure! 
Things clandestine! Romance! And you—you sneer 
at love!” 

“And you—what do you do with it?” he cried. 
“You try to gild the lily.” 

“Then you—you don’t love me, Stephen?” 


SANDRA 


145 


“Love! What is love! A vacuous condition of 
adolescence. The ridiculous hysteria of knobby- 
jointed youth.” 

“Tell me,” she came close to him now, her eyes nar¬ 
rowing, her lovely lips smiling, “have you never loved 
as—as other men love?” 

Winslow made a disparaging gesture. 

“But, of course!” His white teeth flashed at her. 
“When I was seventeen.” 

“Seventeen!” 

“Well, it might have been a month or two either side 
it,” he was sobering now to a mocking satire. He 
looked past Sandra as though at a vision, reminiscent 
amusement in his dark eyes. “She was perhaps thirty, 
and not particularly beautiful. My sense of the beau¬ 
tiful had not then been developed,” he explained. 

His mocking manner challenged her as always it had 
done. His amused smile was as flame to the moth. 

“Stephen,” she said softly, “I wish I could want you 
as—as you want me, but I— It’s all so fresh in here,” 
she laid a white hand against her breast—“David and 
the—the house. I want to cry, Stephen.” 

“Oh,” he declared sarcastically, “you’ll cry after 
awhile, and then you’ll feel better—cleansed—sancti¬ 
fied! And to-morrow or the next day you’ll send for 
me. You see, Sandra, I understand you! I do under¬ 
stand you!” 

“Yes. You understand Sandra Waring!” she 
granted, shrugging disdainfully. “But you do not un¬ 
derstand—do not even know—David Waring’s Rusty. 

“Only a part of me can ever belong to—to you or 
to any man, Steve. The worst part of me. The part 


146 


SANDRA 


of me that never belonged to David. The part of me 
that has robbed him of his Rusty. 

“David had the me that loved the sea and the sun,” 
she said. “To you, Stephen, I’ve brought the wanton 
who asks for wine and artificial lights.” 

“And that is all of you I want, San. I want the 
Sandra David never knew and,” with a quick movement 
he gathered up his coat and hat and gloves, “I’m will¬ 
ing to wait for her!” 

He opened the high walnut door, stepped across its 
threshold, and with a low bow and a kiss blown from 
his fingertips, he drew it slowly shut behind him. 


CHAPTER XI 


D AVID WARING sat in his big leather chair 
near the table in his study, his massive shoul¬ 
ders slumped forward, his elbows on his knees, 
his great head in his wide, unsteady hands. It was after 
midnight and he had been there like that, unmoving— 
except when his fingers, thrust into his rumpled hair, 
beat nervously now and then in unison with the dull 
throbbing that was making such a senseless noise in 
his head—since a few minutes after five. 

Once the little French maid had come to the door and 
seeing him so, had timidly announced dinner and hastily 
disappeared. A half hour later cook herself had come 
to say that dinner would spoil if not served at once, 
but she had paused dumbly at the entrance to the study, 
forgetting the errand that had brought her there. She 
had eyed him suspiciously. Then she, too, had gone 
back to the kitchen, greatly perplexed yet filled with 
appetizing misgivings. 

But David neither saw nor heard. He was dead to 
all physical senses save to the incessant hammering of 
padded sticks on the drum that hung between his 
shoulders into his two hands. 

Drums of Jeopardy! 

He was the Drums of Jeopardy! 

Why had they put him into that silly, morbid play? 
He was not an actor. He did not want to be a drum! 


147 


148 


SANDRA 


He was an architect. He built theaters. Beautiful 
structures the like of which had once looked down on 
the ancient cities of Greece. Great Roman colosseums 
in which gladiators would have been proud to die! 

What was it Parker had said about his elevation— 
his perspective? 

Oh, yes! He remembered now. Parker had grasped 
his hand warmly, and had said—Parker had said— 
Parker- 

Parker? Who was Parker? Oh, of course! 
Parker was the drummer! The drummer! And his 
head was the—his head was- 

If only Rusty would come and—take the sticks away! 
Rusty would smooth his hair and kiss his head where 
this Parker person had beaten his foolish Jeopardy 
rhythm. She’d always taken care of him—Rusty. 
Gave him tons of quinine and hot lemonade whenever he 
caught cold. She’d think he had a cold now. He must 
tell her about the play. Drums of Jeopardy! He 
must tell her- 

But where was she? Why didn’t she come! What 
had she done with all her clothes? Why w r ere her 
closets empty? 

Oh, yes! He’d forgotten Sandra and her infernal 
—fairydust. She’d made Rusty sprinkle it on her 
windowsill and—Rusty had gone out through the win¬ 
dow to the fairies—out to the Never-never-land. 

She’d gone away. Rusty had gone away with San¬ 
dra and she had told him he must not follow. 

How could he follow her! He had no fairydust! 
Only blue prints and water colors and fluted pilasters! 

She had called him Peter Pan! He—David. Why 





SANDRA 


149 


had she got him mixed up with Mate’s father—Peter? 
Peter Stanley. And who was Tinkle Bell? Sandra 
with her wild flights of fancy had put silly things into 
Rusty’s pretty head. Fairydust and all that. 

Pretty head—Rusty’s. He’d do it in clay some day 
and have a cast made of it for his study. Into that 
Sandra could pour none of her madness. He’d not let 
her near it—Sandra. He would want that cast of 
Rusty’s head with him always, and if—if ever anything 
should happen to her—to Rusty—he’d at least have her 
face still smiling at him, her piled up hair still inspir¬ 
ing him! 

But—something had happened to her. She hadn’t 
died. No. If she were dead he would have her here 
now—on a bed of lilies and white satin, and he would 
be kneeling beside her, kissing her cold hands and beg¬ 
ging her to come back to him. 

She had gene away. That was it! Gone away! 
And he could not follow. He could not beg her to 
come back. She had said in her letter that he was 
not to beg her to come back. 

Her letter had said- 

Where was her letter? And Sandra’s? Where were 
they? What had he done with them? He must find 
them. He must read them again. 

He lifted his head at last, and looked querulously 
around the silent room. 

“Rusty!” he whispered. “Rusty!” 

She was standing there in front of him in a long 
robe of golden velvet, and her eyes were misty and 
tender. 

“You’ll always remember me, David,” she was saying 



150 


SANDRA 


wistfully. “You’ll not forget me—ever, will you, 
David boy? Tell me you’ll remember the Rusty who 
sailed with you—fished with you—swam with you! 
Tell me, David! Tell me you will remember always!” 

“Till I’m a handful of dust!” he cried hoarsely, 
springing to his feet and reaching his arms to her. 

But she was gone. She had vanished. His arms 
caught at the empty air. He looked about him in 
troubled wonder. 

“Rusty!” he called. But there came no answer. 
“Rusty!” He flung himself at the door, but even as 
he did it, memory overtook him. 

He put a hand to his head and a sob tore at his mus¬ 
cular throat. 

Rusty had gone! She had left him! Sandra had 
taken her away! 

He came back to the table in the center of the room 
and stood for a long moment staring down at two 
crumpled sheets of paper, one of which was a mauve 
linen embossed with Sandra’s monogram—the other a 
page from a block of note paper which he kept in his 
study. The mauve letter was coldly legible. The page 
from his note block was scrawly and ink-blurred. 

He smiled sorrowfully. 

“Sandra and Rusty,” he said softly. “The 
leopardess and the humming bird!” 

He took up the embossed sheet of paper and glanced 
at it bitterly. It said: 

David : 

I am going away. I don’t know—where. I know 
only that I must find out about life—what it’s all about. 


SANDRA 


151 


I couldn’t bear to live on here with you and Rusty in 
this uneventful manner. Life must mean something 
more than the tame, prosaic business of eating when 
one is hungry and sleeping when one is sleepy. I can’t 
believe that the Scheme of Things is so simple. There 
were meant to be intricacies. There are spectacular 
moments, David, just around the corner. Why should 
I stay forever in the quiet little path where only the 
Salvation Army parades, when in the byways there are 
great circuses with wild beasts and wire walkers who 
laugh at Death, where there are mad moonlight nights, 
tinkling laughter, and spinning roulette wheels I Why 
should I, David! Can you tell me? 

You used to call life a great loom at which we humans 
sat weaving history. Well—I, David, do not want to 
spend the short span allotted to me, weaving monoto¬ 
nously a patternless fabric. Neither shall I be a 
weaver of dreams. I want to weave together the days 
of one lifetime, into an intricate, bizarre design. The 
Rustys and the Eves can satisfy themselves with drab 
colored warp and woof. I, David, must weave my 
years into a silken tapestry as vivid and as colorful 
as a Persian rug. 

In that thing of O’Neil’s—“Beyond the Horizon,” 
a young farmer felt hedged in by the hills surround¬ 
ing his farm. Beyond those hills lay mystery—life— 
adventure! I too, have felt hedged in, and I have 
dreamed of the world beyond the horizon of Mrs. David 
Waring. I am going out to it now. I am going to cross 
my Rubicon and—whatever happens to me, David, I 
shall never come back. I may not find the end of the 
rainbow, but I shall die searching for it. 


152 


SANDRA 


I am sorry for Rusty. And I am sorry for you. 
It is a great pity that neither of you could absorb 
me. A great pity that I am impelled by a force which 
neither of you will ever understand. And oh! it is even 
a still greater pity that I cannot leave behind me your 
flabby-souled Rusty! She will weep at each cast of 
my color-weaving shuttle. She will dull my eyes with 
her tears. Poor Rusty! To her—childbirth would 
have been the greatest of all adventures! And . . . 
always my wings must be weighted with her. 

I do not ask your forgiveness, David. If you are 
wronged, forgive Jimsy’s God, as I should forgive Him 
—if I believed in Him. 

Sandra. 

David laid down the letter, his brows puckered, his 
lips tight. Then tremblingly he took up the ink- 
blurred sheet of note paper. He read it with swim¬ 
ming eyes. 

David ! My own darling David ! 

Upstairs in my room Sandra has left a note to you 
and she has ordered me to leave no word—no message 
from my heart to yours. But I’ve come down here to 
say good-by to your chair, David, and to take one last 
sad look at all the little things your dear hands have 
touched, and I can’t go without telling you how un¬ 
happy I am that she is taking me from you! A hun¬ 
dred times she has tried to make me go with her, but 
always before I’ve managed to hold her back. This 
time I—but I can’t explain it to you, David. Her argu- 


SANDRA 


153 


ments have not convinced me—they’ve drugged me, 
they’ve vitiated my will. 

She is like that sailor we read about who had puzzled 
so long about the mystery of the sea, that at last he 
threw himself into it. He had to know what strange 
things it had been hiding from him. He had to know 
what lay a thousand fathoms below its masking sur¬ 
face. She is obsessed, David! Obsessed with the de¬ 
sire to know what life—a thousand fathoms from you 
and me—-can give to her. And you are not to in¬ 
terfere. 

You and I know that love is the only thing that mat¬ 
ters. But Sandra— To her even love, without thrills 
—without madness and danger—is tasteless. 

She is reckless, David, and I’m frightened. My 
hands are cold and numb as I write, and I can’t see for 
the tears that fill my eyes. I’m crying. I shall always 
be crying, David! Always behind Sandra’s mocking 
smile—muted by her gay laughter, I shall be crying 
—crying for you, David—for my boy who used to hold 
me close to his breast and whisper in my ear his dear 
shy dream about a wee little son that he hoped was one 
day to be. I shall be crying for the tousled David 
who could never find things-—the dear, big man who 
never grew up—who could not enjoy his great outdoors 
unless his Rusty’s hand was clasped tight in his. 

Oh, David darling! Dear joyous Peter Pan! 
You’ve promised to remember—to think of me as I was 
in the wonderful years just gone. They’ve been such 
a little while, David. Such a little while! And life 
—life may last so long- 

You’ll find someone else after awhile, dear, who will 



154 


SANDRA 


laugh and play and dream with you. And for that I 
shall be glad. I would not have my boy always alone 
and—lonely. But oh, David! when life is over for us 
at last, it shall be I who will wander with you through 
the vastnesses of eternity. It shall be my hand that 
clasps yours! We shall have forgotten then, David 
boy, all the bitterness and sorrow of to-day, and once 
again we shall play together, you and I, David. Just 
you and I. Clinging hand to hand in the calm of space¬ 
less infinity. 

Think of this dear, when your heart is saddest. It 
is only for a little while, after all, this parting. Live 
your life, my darling—learn to be happy in some other 
companionship, and then—one day we shall come to¬ 
gether again, where there are no madnesses, no 
separations. 

David ! David boy! My dear Peter Pan! Good-by! 
Good-by! Good-by! To the end of all tinpie, I shall 
be your 

Rusty. 

David Waring continued to gaze through a blurring 
fog at the letter in his hand. The sheet of paper 
crackled with the shaking of his fingers. His lips 
moved mutely. His great head sagged heavily be¬ 
tween his shoulders. His face was the gray of ashes. 

At nine o’clock the next morning Mate Stanley found 
him there, a slumped figure of wretchedness in his 
leather chair near the table. She had run in to the 
Warings to ask about the anticipated trip to the ice 
palace, and the trim, white-capped maid meeting her 
solemnly at the door, had told her awesomely that 


SANDRA 


155 


something was wrong. Mrs. Waring was not at home 
-—had not been home all night. And Mr. Waring had 
not gone to bed but had remained all night in his study, 
looking like a man who had seen a ghost. 

Mate Stanley hesitated, wondering if she should go 
in to her Mr. David, or if she should go first for her 
mother. 

“Well,” she said finally to the maid, “if something 
has happened to Mrs. Waring—automobile run over 
her or—or something, I guess Mr. Waring is needing 
me terribly.” She started for the study, paused, and 
said across her shoulder: “Run next door, please, and 
tell my mother to come over at once. Don’t tell her 
about the accident to Mrs. Waring. I—I’d rather 
mother didn’t know it was an automobile. She—she’s 
frightened to death of them as it is.” 

She leaned weakly against the closed study door and 
clenched her small fists. 

“Oh, Mrs. Sandra—Rusty! If I ever find the man 
who—who hurt you, I—I’ll kill him! Oh, I will! I 
will!” Her lips were trembling and she raised a hand 
and held it for a second tightly against them. “I 
mustn’t cry,” she said. “I mustn’t cry. I’ll be brave, 
Mrs. Rusty, just like you would want me to be. And 
I’ll take care of your Mr. David. Oh, I will, Mrs. 
Rusty! And—and I sha’n’t cry, though I’m wanting 
to—awfully.” 

Slowly, noiselessly she opened the door, went in, and 
closed it quietly behind her. 

“Mr. David!” she called softly. 

David looked up hazily. 

“Good evening,” he said, making an effort to smile. 


156 


SANDRA 


“Oh, Mr. David!” sobbed Mate, running to his side, 
and catching up one of his inert hands in hers. “It 
isn’t evening. It’s morning. And—and you’ve been 
here like this all night 1” She stifled her sobs heroically, 
and patted his hand soothingly. “It can’t be helped— 
what’s happened to your—your Rusty. It—it’s ter¬ 
rible—but it can’t be helped now, Mr. David dear.” 

“You know?” inquired David with no rising inflec¬ 
tion in his tired voice, but a faint look of surprise in 
the face he lifted to hers. 

Mate Stanley nodded slowly. 

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured. “Seems like it just 
can’t be true!” She swallowed convulsively. “Why, 
yesterday morning she waved to me from her window, 
and early in the afternoon, I saw her out front under 
the maple trees looking back here at the house. She 
stood there a long time, then she bent down and picked 
up from the ground a dried old leaf from one of the 
trees, and—and then all at once, she turned her back 
to the house and—hurried away down the road. Once 
she looked back and I think she threw a kiss, but I’m 
not sure, Bobbie was talking to me—we were down¬ 
stairs in the library—and” she sighed, and her gold- 
flecked brown eyes moistened again, “and I guess she 

must have been hit right—right after that. I guess_ 

I guess maybe I was the last person on this very earth 
to—to see her alive.” 

David straightened in his chair. 

“Then she—she’s dead!” he whispered. 

“Isn’t she?” Mate Stanley’s eyes widened. “Oh, 
if she’s only hurt, why don’t you bring her home! She 
won’t like a hospital. Though of course,” she modified 


SANDRA 


157 


thoughtfully, “she’ll look perfectly ravishing in her 
yellow silk nightgowns! Where is she, Mr. David?” 

David’s brows puckered. 

“Who told you that—she was—was hurt?” 

“Your maid. She said Mrs. Waring had not been 
home all night and that—that—you hadn’t been to bed, 
and-” 

David stood up suddenly. He gave the two small 
hands that clung to him a faint squeeze, then he looked 
gravely into the moist brown eyes. 

“I can’t tell you, Mate, about what has—happened 
to—to our Rusty. She has gone away. You must 
never ask me why—nor where. I shall be thinking 
about her always. And we shall talk about her some¬ 
times, you and I, as she was when—when—as she was 
before she went away from us. But we will never talk 
about the—Sandra who—who is no longer here. 

“I shall explain—things to your mother, Mate. 
Perhaps some day—when you are older—old enough 
to understand and to—to judge kindly, she will explain 
to you. Will that—suffice?” he asked, drawing to¬ 
gether and covering with a broad hand, two crumpled 
sheets of paper that lay on the table at his side. 

Mate’s piquant face was tense with amazement. Her 
fingers twisted excitedly at a skirt fold of her smart 
serge frock. 

“Then it wasn’t an—an automobile accident!” she 
burst forth involuntarily. 

“No, Mate. Just one of life’s bitter jests! But we 
must not-” 

“Oh, I sha’n’t ask questions, Mr. David!” she cried. 
“I shall never ask you. Whatever it is, Mr. David, 




158 


SANDRA 


I—I wish it had not— been. I’m sorry. I wish I— 
wish I could do something to—to make you happy. 
There’s such a terrible look in your eyes.” She gulped 
and caught her short under lip between her teeth. Then 
she came close and touched her fingers tenderly to the 
hand that covered the two sheets of paper. 

“Oh! I can’t bear to see you unhappy, Mr. David, 
dear! Please! Won’t you smile at me—iust a— 
little?” 

David’s stiff lips relaxed to a wan smile. 

“Will that do?” he asked. 

“For now,” replied the girl softly. 

And then somehow she was gone and her Mother 
was there, listening to the brief explanation of San¬ 
dra’s disappearance as he stammered it out to her, and 
shaking her yellow head uncomprehendingly. 

“You’ll find her,” she suggested when he had finished, 
“and bring her back.” 

“No,” he faltered. “She’s told me,” he indicated the 
letters which lay now face down on the table and which 
he had not shown to her, “that I am not to interfere.” 
I’ll wait here for her. She’ll come back some day.” 

“And you’ll be waiting!” marveled Eve, filled with 
awe for the man’s profound loyalty. 

“Why, yes ! She—why, Eve, she’s just a child play¬ 
ing truant. She’s tired of school and—” he paused 
and his eyes brightened with the thought that came to 
him. “Ever hear of fairydust?” he ventured. 

“Fairydust!” Eve shook her head. “I don’t think 
I have.” 

“Well,” went on David, looking her steadily in the 


SANDRA 159 

eyes, “it has something to do with Peter Pan, and if 
you-” 

“Oh! To be sure! Mate has the book, and long 
ago I saw the play.” 

David nodded. 

“Well,” he began again with pathetic eagerness, 
“Sandra got tired of school, as I have said, and con¬ 
ceived the idea of sprinkling this fairydust stuff on her 
windowsill that she might fly away with the fairies to 
the Never-never-land.” 

“Oh!” murmured Eve Stanley 

“And so,” David spread his two hands palms up¬ 
wards, in a gesture that finished the subject, “she’s 
just gone on a—on a sort of runaway vacation. And 
you wouldn’t close your home and your heart to Mate, 
would you, if she had—run away like that?” 

He held her gaze tenaciously. 

“Naturally not!” returned Eve, greatly relieved. 

“There you are!” exclaimed David triumphantly. 

“Just vacationing!” he whispered to himself when 
Eve had gone. “Just vacationing!” he repeated, look¬ 
ing out through the window to the maple trees. 



CHAPTER XII 


W HEN the door had closed behind Stephen 
Winslow, Sandra stood irresolute, her eyes 
dilated, her pulses throbbing. She did not 
want him to stay. She kept telling herself that. Yet 
she did not want to be left alone. 

“And so exits the mocking satyr !” she said to her¬ 
self, her lips curling scornfully. 

Her gaze went slowly round the wide, high-ceilinged 
room. Instantly a chill rushed through her. 

“Steve!” she cried, springing to the door and jerk¬ 
ing it hurriedly open. “Steve! Come back! You 
mustn’t leave me alone. Steve!” She ran to the head 
of the carpeted stairs and looked down into the dimly 
lit entrance hall. There was no one below, and even 
as she looked the muffled whir of an automobile engine 
came to her straining ears. 

“He’s gone!” she whispered. “Oh, how could he! 
How could he!” 

She went back into Gania Bartelle’s huge living room, 
and sat for a long time listening to the monotonous 
ticking of a quaint banjo-shaped clock. Then sud¬ 
denly she stood up and behind a hand held tight against 
her mouth, a scream was aborted. 

That clock! That awful clock! It was enough to 
give one hysteria. She would go mad if she had to 
listen to that dreary, unending tick-tick, tick-tick! 

She went over to the wall where it hung and opening 
160 


SANDRA 


161 


the glass door put up a hand and caught the swinging 
pendulum. The monotonous ticking ceased. The room 
was silent. Yet somehow it seemed less quiet than it 
had before. 

Sandra shut the clock door and turned back to the 
room. She smiled disdainfully at her attack of nerves. 
She was being absurd, silly. She shrugged her shoul¬ 
ders, went over to the chair on which Stephen had 
flung her wrap, and searched in the cloak’s pockets^ 
Finding her vanity case, she opened it and looked criti¬ 
cally into its tiny mirror to see if the last few hours 
had ravaged the beauty of her face. 

“Get out of there, Rusty!” she commanded, staring 
into the half-frighted eyes. “You’ve no right in my 
eyes. You’ve no right here at all. You are subju¬ 
gated. Conquered.” 

But though she touched a pencil to her lashes and 
forced the green eyes to an insolence, there remained 
that look of fear which so annoyed her. 

She shivered. It was cold in the room. She laid 
down her vanity case and went over to the long, low 
radiator that ran along the rear wall beneath the win¬ 
dows which opened onto what appeared to be a court. 
The radiator was barely warm. She touched the valve 
knob tentatively with her foot. It did not move. She 
knelt down and tried with her two hands to turn it, but 
it held fast. She stood up again with a frown of impa¬ 
tience. Very likely the thing was already turned on. 
The pressure had gone down. Janitors expected ten¬ 
ants to retire early. It could not be later than ten. 
She glanced at the silent clock with its stilled pen¬ 
dulum. 


162 


SANDRA 


Eleven-thirty! How had it got to be so late! Why 
didn’t Stephen come back! He must know that on this 
night of all nights, she should not be alone. He should 
come back and—talk to her. And after awhile he could 
go to sleep there on that couch. If he did not come 
back what should she do through the long hours of the 
night? She couldn’t sleep. No use trying. She 
wouldn’t dare turn out the lights. In the darkness of 
this strange room she would lose herself to Rusty. She 
could not read. How could she concentrate when she 
was still raw from the uprooting of her life’s tendrils— 
rabid as a drug addict under abstemious treatment! 

It would be at least six hours before daylight! Six 
hours! Why, she had never realized until now what 
one’s mental condition had to do with the measuring 
of time. Six hours under—ordinary circumstances 
would be—why, they would be as one hour here on this 
night in this lonely apartment! Apparently she was 
not going to enjoy the first chapter of this new life. 
Stephen was right about—about David being a habit . 
She had not guessed how much a part of her had become 
the sound of his lumbering stride on the veranda—his 
tramp-tramp up the stairs—his good-natured chuckle 
and his good-night kiss. She supposed—thinking here 
about it now—that even the subconsciousness of his 
nearness through the hours of the night, had been 
sedative. 

She wondered what he—David—was doing. Was he, 
too, counting with dread the hours of the night—this 
first night without his—Rusty? What had he done— 
what had he thought in that moment when her letter 
had made it clear to him that she had gone! Poor 


SANDRA 


163 


David! Poor old Peter Pan! She was glad she had 
not been compelled to tell him. Writing it was bad 
enough. She could not have endured to see the hurt in 
his dear eyes. She could not have endured- 

She shivered again and going over to the front win¬ 
dows held a blind to one side and peered out. 

It had begun to snow. The newspapers had 
prophesied an early winter. And already winter was 
here. 

A pedestrian on the sidewalk across the street bent 
to the wind, head down, shoulders drawn up to his 
ears, with no look to right or left. The empty park, 
with its gaunt trees and deserted walks, was ghastly 
under the pale light from the snow-veiled electric street 
lamps. A paper thin blanket of snow lay on the steps 
below, and not a footprint had scarred it. No one 
had come in or gone out of this house in which Gania 
Bartelle lived, since it had started to snow. Perhaps 
there was nobody else in the house. It had seemed 
gloomy enough when she had entered it. Where were 
all the studio-tenants ? Where were all the city’s peo¬ 
ple? Where was the world—what had happened to it? 

The falling snow stifled her. She couldn’t breathe. 
She felt buried alive. She couldn’t stand it! She 
couldn’t! She couldn’t! 

Like an animal at bay she sprang to the chair 
on which lay her long fur coat, and began to get herself 
into it. But her mood changed abruptly. 

“Go back!” She laughed. “When I’ve just won free¬ 
dom and the chance to cast my shuttle where and how 
I will. Go back to monotony! Why! even in this 
first hour of loneliness, there’s adventure—something 



164 


SANDRA 


different—not of the ordinary. It is better to have an 
ecstasy of wretchedness than a surfeit of lethargic 
calm.” 

She dropped the coat back to its place on the chair, 
and humming a bar from some popular song, made her 
way lesiurely to the small grand piano which filled one 
corner of the spacious room. Seating herself on the 
mahogany bench, she let her fingers glide over the keys 
in a defiant gesture. A mad Bohemian rhapsody an¬ 
swered her touch. A staccato of lilting laughter. A 
scherzo of nonchalance. 

Her hands came abruptly to a stop. She nodded 
her tawny head once or twice, and got up from her 
seat. 

“Jimsy! Why didn’t I think of him before?” she 
said, looking around for the telephone. She found it 
in the little bedroom that adjoined the living room at 
the left. Feverishly she searched the telephone book 
for his number. She found it at last, and gave it to 
the signaled operator. 

After an interminable wait, she was told that the 
number did not answer. 

“Ring again,” she commanded. “Ring again.” 

There was another wait, and once more she was in¬ 
formed that the number made no response. 

“But you must keep on ringing it,” she urged. 
“You’ll have to awaken the party, if he is asleep.” 

“Sorry, but-” 

Ring! insisted Sandra in a not-to-be-denied voice. 
“Ring that number until I tell you to stop.” 

After what seemed to Sandra to have been hours, o, 
sleepy voice came across the wire to her. 



SANDRA 165 

“Is this Doctor Hapgood’s apartment?” she asked 
hastily. 

“It is, ma’am, but the reverend-sir is in bed.” 

“I want to speak with him,” said Sandra. “I must 
speak with him.” 

“He’s asleep, ma’am.” 

“He will come to the phone if you tell him that Mrs. 
Waring is on the wire.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” reluctantly. “Very well, ma’am.” 

Silence. Then: 

“Sandra!” It was William James Hapgood’s deep, 
warm voice. Sound of it brought Sandra’s world back 
into its orbit. 

“Yes. It’s I. I want to see you, Jimsy!” 

“What has happened?” he asked, plainly worried. 
“Something happened to David?” 

“No. Something has happened to me.” 

“To you!” 

“Yes. What has happened to me affects David, 
naturally. Perhaps almost as much as it affects me 
—only in a different way ... I want you to come to 
me. I am alone, and I didn’t know being alone could be 
so terrible.” 

“Come to you! You are alone! How can I come 
to you? Where are you?” 

“I’m down at Washington Square, in a studio apart¬ 
ment belonging to-” 

“Washington Square! Why are you there? San¬ 
dra, what has happened?” 

“I’ll tell you when you come down. That sleepy 
servant who answered the phone can call a taxi while 
you get yourself dressed.” 



166 


SANDRA 


“But it’s midnight!” 

“So it is, Jimsy. Midnight! And Fm alone, but— 
I sha’n’t stay alone, Jimsy.” 

“Sandra!” his voice was tense. “What do you 
mean?” 

“Oh,” replied Sandra, “if you will not come to me, I 
shall come to you!” 

“You wouldn’t-” 

“Oh, yes, I would! . . . Jimsy! Jimsy! Please!” 

“In the morning, Sandra dear. Though how I shall 
stand the suspense and worry until then, I do not know. 
Can’t you tell me now, what has happened?” 

“I shall not tell you —every if you fail me when I most 
need you— now!” 

Silence. 

“Do not doctors of the soul as well as doctors of 
the flesh call at any hour they are needed?” 

Silence. 

“Do they not, Jimsy?” she repeated beseechingly. 

“I’ll be down,” he said tersely. “What is the street 
number and—how shall I get in when I have arrived?” 

She gave him the address, and telling him that she 
would watch for him from the window, she hung up the 
receiver and went hurriedly to Gania’s dressing table. 
Five minutes later she took up her position at the win¬ 
dow. It was still snowing, but the park no longer 
looked ghastly. It was a Corot masterpiece. 

It was twelve-twenty when she let the Reverend 
William James Hapgood into the living-room which 
seemed to have warmed magically. 

He stood inside the door looking at her question- 
ingly, as she took his hat and coat and hung them on 



SANDRA 167 

a clothes tree which she had discovered in a shadowy 
niche behind a screen. 

“Why are you here?” he demanded when she had 
come back to him. 

“I’ve left David,” she said briefly, her gaze meeting 
his unflinchingly. 

“Left David!” 

“Yes.” 

“I don’t understand!” 

“No. You wouldn’t understand! You will not un¬ 
derstand after I have finished explaining it all to you. 
Sit down, Jimsy. I haven’t said how glad I am that 
you have come.” 

“I don’t understand,” repeated Hapgood, gazing at 
her from his great height. 

Sandra pushed a chair forward and seated herself 
upon another close by. 

“You are surprised,” she said, leaning her russet 
head back against the sapphire velour of her chair. 

“I am—shocked!” He sat down heavily. 

“There’s nothing unusual about—a separation of 
this kind,” she remarked. 

“No. But-” 

“Yes?” 

“Well,” Hapgood’s brown eyes escaped her steady 
gaze, “somehow,” he went on, “you and David—” He 
paused. 

“You did not expect it of us. That’s just it! 
Nobody seems ever to expect it of anybody, yet some¬ 
body is always separating from somebody else.” 

“That is distressingly true,” assented the clergyman. 
“But you and David— Why! you’ve been such pals!” 



168 


SANDRA 


“Pals! Yes,” smiled Sandra. “But a woman marries 
that she may have a lover, not a—pal.” 

“David loves you,” defended Hapgood. 

“I have never doubted his love. I am not doubting 
it now.” 

“Then why on earth-” 

“Because— Oh! you wouldn’t understand, Jimsy. 
I’ll try to tell you, but the telling is—useless.” 

“You’ve been happy with him,” he insisted doggedly. 

“Happy! Yes. But not contented, Jimsy. Per¬ 
haps”—she leaned forward, her red lips parting in that 
odd breathlessness—“you can understand this: There 
comes to a woman like me as the years go by, a sort of 
protest against those very years—their insipid calm¬ 
ness—their atrophying uneventfulness. She begins to 
hunger for adventure and the hazards of romance.” 

“You love David. You loved him when you married 
him,” he reasoned. 

“I don’t know.” She hesitated. “In the beginning 
I wasn’t sure of myself-” 

“Of your love for David?” 

“Yes. But the risk seemed small. It does to most 
young girls. There is always an exit through the di¬ 
vorce courts if one finds that one has made a mistake.” 

“The divorce courts!” 

She nodded. 

“And I suppose this thought was always skulking 
somewhere in the back of my mind even in those moments 
when I was happiest with David. It haunted me. I 
came subconsciously, I think, to view my marriage as 
a—a temporary affair.” 

“You never thought about the—sweetness of—of 




SANDRA 169 

growing old together—you and—and David,” he mar¬ 
veled. 

Sandra frowned. 

“Never!” 

There was a silent moment. Then: 

“I’ll tell you when I came first to understand this—- 
this subconscious condition,” she said, still leaning for¬ 
ward in that odd, breathless manner. “Look at me, 
Jimsy,” she commanded softly. 

His protesting brown eyes lifted. 

How beautiful she was! The light from the shaded 
lamp did such fantastic things with the reds and golds 
of her burnished hair. Her lips looked like short, nar¬ 
row strips of warm crimson satin! Her throat was 
like- 

“Jimsy!” Her voice was golden velvet. “One night 
last spring David had two guests for dinner. One of 
them had splendid eyes that were made to look, not 
from a pulpit, but into the eyes of a woman. He said 
caustic things to the woman into whose eyes he looked 
that night, and—coming upon her as he did, immedi¬ 
ately after she had, upstairs in her room, experienced 
her first conscious analysis of herself, he made for a 
complete awakening.” 

When she talked like this her voice made a curious 
melody of words. Hapgood struggled against the 
music of her. 

“But before that—you—you had subconsciously 
hungered for freedom!” 

“Always ahead of me,” she replied, “stretched a path 
of many interests and I had but to turn at right angles 
from David, to take it.” 



170 


SANDRA 


“Get on your things,” he ordered, his shoulders erect 
now, his sense of decen/cy asserting itself. 

“Where will you take me?” she asked eagerly. 

“To David!” 

“To David!” She shook her shapely head. 

“You will not go?” 

“Why should I?” 

“Because your place is there.” 

“With David?” 

“With David!” 

“Why do you say that?” 

“Because you are his wife, Sandra.” 

“And because in the hysteria of adolescence, 55 
Stephen’s cynical words came to her with sudden ap¬ 
preciation, “I married David, you think I must spend 
with him all the days of the only life I have.” 

“There is another and a finer life when this one is 
done, Sandra. Besides, marriage-” 

“This is the only life of which I am sure,” she in¬ 
terrupted a trifle fiercely. “The only life about which 
I know anything at all, and it is mine, Jimsy. Solely 
and entirely mine! One’s life should be as much one’s 
exclusive property as one’s eyes. David doesn’t ex¬ 
pect to see with my eyes. Why should he expect to 
live with my life, if I do not wish him to!” 

“You’ve a soul to think of, Sandra. Your earthly 
life is-” 

“Ah! Jimsy! Talk to me if you will of relativity 
or of psychoanalysis or of a Seminole sun dance and I 
will understand. But don’t try to make me compre¬ 
hend the incomprehensible.” 




SANDRA 171 

“You will not even believe in your own soul!” he ex¬ 
claimed impatiently. 

“If I have a soul, Jimsy, it is papier mache.” 

“You have a conscience!” 

“It is asbestos, Jimsy.” 

“It does not trouble you—ever?” 

“It stands the fires of inquisition perfectly.” 

“That is not true!” cried the man. “You’ve an in¬ 
flammable conscience! Look!” He leaned forward and 
caught up one of her hands. “You are trembling. 
You— Sandra ! You are regretting the step you have 
taken. Already you are ashamed.” 

“Perhaps,” she said evenly. “In some traitorous 
part of me.” 

“What can I say to such a woman?” he deplored, 
rising and beginning to walk up and down the room. 

“Am I such a woman, Jimsy?” 

She wanted him to look at her, but he would not. 

“You are damnably beautiful—hellishly fascinating, 
if that is what you want me to say,” he replied, thrust¬ 
ing his hands deep into his pockets and continuing to 
walk. 

“Is that not enough for the twentieth century 
woman?” Her gaze followed him half-broodingly. 
“Has any century demanded more of her?” 

“She is more than that,” he retorted harshly, “or 
she is—just female!” 

“Oh!” 

“I don’t deny,” he continued mercilessly, “that the 
world has many of your kind. There are perhaps, as 
many of you as there are lip-sticks and powder puffs. 
Our young girls are flappers! (Vulgar expression!) 


172 


SANDRA 


With silk ankles and gingham heads. Their older sis¬ 
ters—often their mothers—are professional coquettes 
—painted-” 

“Libertines!” 

“Libertines, yes. . . . Why didn’t Volstead under¬ 
stand all intoxicants !” He shoved a chair impatiently 
from his path. “To the appeal to our young men— 
the appeal which asks them to look not upon the wine 
when it is red, we should add: ‘look not upon the lips 
that are falsely red.’ ” 

“You’re hard on us, Jimsy.” 

“You’re hard on yourselves!” 

“Rouge doesn’t make us immoral.” 

“Immoral!” He stopped and looked at her earnestly. 
“It is more terrible to be unmoral than immoral.” 

“If wanting to be beautiful is proof that one is un¬ 
moral, then— Oh, Jimsy ! where even in your own gen¬ 
tle congregation will you find a moral woman!” 

He began again to pace the floor, shaking his head 
sadly. 

“What a pity your Christ is not living to-day,” she 
regretted calmly. “He would make the rules for liv¬ 
ing much broader. He would have-” 

“Stop it!” Hapgood swung round on her angrily. 

“Forgive me,” she said quickly, rising and approach¬ 
ing him with hands outstretched. “I’m scratching back 
a little, because—you—you hurt me, Jimsy.” 

“If only I could hurt you,” he exclaimed rather sav¬ 
agely as he evaded her touch. “But—” he gazed into 
the green eyes lifted imploringly to his and it was like 
submerging himself in absinthe, “you’re going to hurt 
yourself, Sandra. You are riding for a fall.” 




SANDRA 


173 


“Perhaps,” she assented dreamily. “I know that 
first, though, I shall have sailed through the clouds. If 
I have ever to come back to the prosaic, I may find no 
parachute with which I can come down gently. More 
than likely I shall hit the earth with a thud. But what 
of that?” Her brows lifted. “Shall I not have visited 
the heavens! Moreover, a hard fall will end me so 
definitely. Oblivion is less terrible than broken bones 
or a bruised spirit.” 

“Sailing with the clouds will cost money, Sandra. 
How shall you manage?” he asked, impulsively taking 
one of her hands in his. 

“I’ve these,” she touched her exquisitely carved chin 
to the string of pearls that encircled her throat. 
“They were a wedding gift from my father. And— 
Wasn’t it in Declasse that the woman who ran away 
from her husband sold from her necklace a pearl at a 
time until the last pearl was gone?” 

“I don’t know. I didn’t see the play. What hap¬ 
pened to her when the last pearl was gone?” 

“She died. Accident. Automobile—an expensive 
limousine. I remember when they carried her dying 
onto the stage, she remarked whimsically that she was 
glad it had been a nice car , or something to that effect.” 

After a brief silence Hapgood remarked: 

“And David— He will fail in his work. He can’t 
go on without you.” 

“Oh, yes. He will go on!” She looked past him 
to a shadowy corner. “He will succeed. I can’t tell 
you why I know this, but—David will succeed.” 

Again there came silence. The clergyman staring 
moodily about the room, Sandra Waring examining 


174 


SANDRA 


with apparent concentration a sapphire ring that 
adorned one of her white tapering fingers. She 
shrugged her shoulders, and glanced furitively at her 
companion. 

“Hungry?” she asked. 

“No.” 

“I am,” she said. “I had dinner with—with some¬ 
one and I’m afraid I was too excited to eat anything. 
If you will excuse me for a few minutes, I shall forage 
through my friend’s kitchenette.” She turned to go. 
He held her back with: 

“Who is the—friend to whom this place belongs, 
Sandra ?” 

Sandra did not answer at once. She felt that it 
would not be fair to Gania Bartelle to say that Gania 
had loaned her apartment to— Oh, no! She had best 
not mention Gania. 

“I’d rather not tell you, Jimsy!” A narrow white 
hand made a protesting gesture. 

“I see,” said Hapgood simply. 

“But he did not see, and his lips came together in a 
firm, straight line. 

“Thank you, Jimsy,” murmured Sandra, turning 
back again toward the kitchen. 

She returned in five minutes with a napkin-covered 
tray on which was a small dish of caviar, a shallow 
bowl containing crackers and a bottle of light wine. 
She pushed aside some books at one end of the round 
gate leg table and set the tray down with a little smile 
at the man who stood watching her. 

She indicated his chair and mechanically he drew 
it nearer to the table and sat down. 


SANDRA 


175 


“No wine, please,” he said, as she filled two glasses 
from the bottle. 

“You don’t care for it?” asked Sandra in surprise. 

“I am not a law breaker.” 

“Oh, bondage! Bondage!” she ridiculed, her lips 
lifting at the corners scornfully. “Oh, Simon-Called- 
Peter! you allow the laws of men to rob you of the 
things you want.” 

“I do not want that to which I have no right!” 

“You are not telling the truth, Jimsy. You want—■ 
much—that the world of men say belongs to—well, not 
to you. Is it not so?” 

The man flushed darkly. He dared not meet her 
probing gaze. 

“At least,” he defended, “I have restraint.” 

“Marvelous restraint, Jimsy.” Her voice corrobo¬ 
rated her words, yet for some curious and inconceiv¬ 
able reason the clergyman felt discomfited and ashamed. 

“I think I need to have it for—both of us,” he re¬ 
plied. But looking at her as he said it, he knew that 
in this moment Sandra Waring’s repose was absolute. 
And all through the next half hour she smiled calmly 
across the little table at him. Her coolness, however, 
was as devastating as her fire. 

She had finished half the small bottle of wine when 
her mood changed without warning. A faraway look 
came into her eyes, and she wondered in a whisper, 
which to catch he had to lean close, if David were 
asleep. 

She rose suddenly and walked to one of the windows 
where she peered out through a crack of the blind to 
the dimly-lit night. Hapgood watching her, saw her 


176 


SANDRA 


shoulders move, and he caught the faint sound of a sigh. 
Without conscious volition he got up and went to her. 

“You are—wonderful when you are like— this," he 
declared impetuously. “You are something that I can 
understand. You are human . . . Sandra!” 

She turned from the window and faced him. How 
different he was from Stephen Winslow who had only 
impatience for her sadness! How splendid he was— 
this man who had come through the night to her! She 
lifted her eyes dreamily to his, and the moisture that 
glistened in them was as oil to flames. 

“Sandra !” he breathed. He drew her almost 
roughly into his arms. “Sandra!” Her name was 
smothered against her yielding lips. For one long pas¬ 
sionate moment she gave herself to him, then with 
a physical effort she escaped his embrace and fastened 
his gaze with hers. 

“Go home, Jimsy,” she urged softly. “Go now be¬ 
fore it is—too late. For myself it —it would not mat¬ 
ter. I have broken my chains. But for you—Ah, 
Jimsy dear! Fate jests with me! And I laugh wdth 
her at myself, for though I am delirious with loneliness 
and—need of you, I am sending you, Jimsy, back to the 
God in whom I can’t believe. I am saving you from 
yourself and—giving you back to your—church.” 

The brown eyes staring into hers cleared of their 
fever. The flush died out of the strongly masculine 
face. He continued to stare for another tense instant, 
then he shook himself like an awakening mastiff and 
With a muttered: “Thanks!” strode to the other end 
of the room, took up his coat and hat, and bowing 
mechanically passed out of Gania Bartelle’s apartment. 


CHAPTER XIII 


O UTSIDE on the stone steps William Hapgood 
paused and taking a long breath looked up 
and down the street in quest of a vagrant 
taxi. Off at the left two lights pierced the thin veil 
of sifting snow, grew into automobile lamps as he 
waited, and finally, flashing into a widespread glare, 
came directly to the edge of the sidewalk in front of 
the stoop upon which he was standing, and slowed to 
a stop. It was not a taxi as he had hoped, but a 
rakey French roadster. 

A man jumped from the car and swung across the 
snow-covered sidew’alk to the foot of the stoop, where 
he stopped short. 

“Well!” came a sardonic laugh. 

“Winslow!” Hapgood stared at the man dazedly, 
cold premonition stabbing at his heart. 

“So she sent for you!” ejaculated Stephen Winslow. 
He whistled softly. “The flesh,” he said, “would per¬ 
haps mean less to you.” 

The man on the upper step drew himself involun¬ 
tarily back as from a blow. 

“Explain yourself!” 

Winslow laughed. 

“Waste of breath,” he commented dryly. 

“There’ll be a waste of—something else, if you 

don’t, ” returned Hapgood quietly. 

177 


178 


SANDRA 


“Heroics! Surely you wouldn’t waste heroics on our 
glorious siren, would you, your reverence?” 

William Hapgood caught the sneering man by the 
shoulder. He towered above him from the higher step, 
his face livid, his eyes glowing like the two lamps of the 
rakey French car. 

“I don’t know why you are here,” he jerked from 
between his set teeth, a dry feeling in his mouth, a sick¬ 
ening sensation enervating his heart. 44 And you are 
evidently referring to some person unknown to me. 
But-” 

“Sandra Waring! Hasn’t she been entertaining 
you?” put in Winslow still smiling imperturably. 

“But I don’t like your tone nor your manner,” con¬ 
tinued Hapgood taking no cognizance of the interpo¬ 
lation. “I have a friend in this house and lest in 
some way she be annoyed by you, I must invite you to 
get back into your car and be on your way.” 

46 You do the heroics superbly,” sneered Winslow, 
still ignoring the gripping fingers at his shoulder. 
“Didn’t think you had it in you. She must have hyp¬ 
notized you as completely as she has hypnotized her¬ 
self. Sorry for you, old chap! Splendid creature— 
Sandra, but toxic. Fearfully toxic. And you—you 
are-” 

He did not finish. Hapgood’s free hand shot unex¬ 
pectedly out as an iron fist. It landed on the speaker’s 
jaw and sent him spinning backwards toward his car, 
where, regaining his equilibrium, he made one of his 
mocking salutes to the man on the stoop. 

“Cave man!” he exclaimed suavely. “Having already 
driven you to—to this, her influence is boundless.” He 




SANDRA 


179 


opened the door of his roadster and climbing leisurely 
in, seated himself on the cushioned seat. “With me,” 
he said, leaning his smiling face from the car, “she is 
but Greek meeting Greek. But you—Oh, earnest sky- 
pilot ! you she will send to the scrap heap of lost souls!” 

The man on the steps did not reply. No words came 
to him. No coherent thoughts manipulated the fog of 
his aching brain. The engine of the rakey roadster 
whirred, its gears argued grindingly, its driver laughed, 
then the car itself slid off down the snow-padded street. 

The next day Sandra Waring installed herself in a 
studio apartment which she rented furnished. Search¬ 
ing for such a place occupied a greater portion of the 
day and much of her thought, though now and then a 
depressing loneliness had descended upon her with all 
but crushing weight. 

By five o’clock she was settled. Her trunks, arrived 
from the railway station to which she had sent them, 
were unpacked and her rooms had taken on the air of 
occupancy. A few of her own sheets of music were 
strewn with precise carelessness on the piano rack. A 
picture or two from her own boudoir had replaced the 
cheap prints which had previously maligned the walls. 
Her numerous toilet articles adorned the dressing table 
in the gay little bedroom. And the drawer of the tiny 
night-stand beside the bed had become the sacristy for 
an old briar pipe in the bowl of which still clung a 
crust of ash. 

At ten minutes past five she had worn out inspection 
interest, and had glanced three times at her rented 
mahogany clock to see if it had not stopped. She had 
set it immediately she had taken possession of the 


180 


SANDRA 


place, anxious—contrary to last night—to have the 
ticking of a clock for company. Now, of a sudden, its 
hands seemed to have lost the power of motion. She 
listened intently. Came the monotonous tick-tick. She 
shook her head in disapproval. 

“ ‘Quoth the raven! Never more! Never more! Never 
more! Quoth the raven: Never more!’” She made a 
faint grimace. “You and the raven are pessimists, 
clock. How can either of you know that I shall not 
long be lonely ? How can you know that I am come out 
of my nest to rob the world of all its treasures? Have 
either of you guessed that 

“ ‘I shall have pearls blacker than caviar. 

Rubies such as a ripe pomegranate bleeds. 

Gold pale as honey dripping from a star. 

Brought me by slaves like snow and apple-seeds. 

I shall have linen smooth as pigeons’ throats, 

I shall have purple more than sunset-red. 

The velvet leap of leopards to my boats. 

The fragrance of the cedars to my bed. 

I shall have music stronger than the wind 
An'S sweeter than a Chinese apricot, 

In gardens like a translucent melon-rind 
I shall have dreams as sharp as bergamot. 

Before my throning presence, emperors 

Will stand abashed as troubled children do-* ” 

She broke off suddenly in the middle of a stanza, 
shrugging denial of the unspoken final lines. 



SANDRA 


181 


“Too bad,” she regretted, “the last two lines are 
maudlin. The poet should better know the heart of 
woman. What woman would 

‘not smile though every knee defers. 

But bid them go, bid them bring night and you*? 

Is there a heart so monogamous? Is there a you 
so worthy, so capable of supplanting all other riches?” 

She shook her head unbelievingly, her attention once 
more attracted to the clock. 

Twelve minutes past five! Heavens! Had only two 
minutes been consumed by that poem! 

She turned with sharp impatience to her bedroom 
where she got herself feverishly into a champagne-col¬ 
ored dinner gown. And when she was finally dressed 
she began to wonder where she would go and how on 
earth she would endure going there alone! For the 
first time that day she regretted that she had left with 
Gania’s janitress no address for an inquiring Stephen 
or a William James. She had been stupid—foolish. 

Of the two, Stephen would better suit her reckless 
mood, but where on earth at this hour, could she reach 
him! She might telephone to his Long Island bachelor 
cottage, but there was not even a remote possibility 
that he would be there. More than likely he was in 
town and at this very minute wondering what part of 
Manhattan was hiding her. But where could she ex¬ 
pect him to be? She was not acquainted with his 
haunts. She did not know the name of any one of his 
clubs. Stephen, then, was not to be counted on to es¬ 
cort her somewhere to dinner. 



182 


SANDRA 


As for William James—Certainly to be consistent 
she must leave him with the church to which she had 
last night returned him. There remained for her, then, 
the necessity of seeking diversion from new sources. 

The Channing Blairs! She hadn’t seen them for 
months—years in fact. She had last met Janet at a 
bridge party—stupid things, bridge parties!—three 
years ago. And Channing—her last meeting with him 
antedated the bridge narcotic. They weren’t particu¬ 
larly interesting—the Blairs, but at least they were 
more fertile of conversation than a clock which could 
only repeat with unvarying irksomeness: “Tick-tick! 
Never more! Never more! Tick-tick! Never more!” 
Yes, there was no doubt but that the Blairs would be 
more diverting than a clock—a rented clock. 

Her apartment was midway the fifties just west of 
Fifth Avenue, in a block that was a taxicab artery, and 
she had but a minute to wait for a passing fare-seek¬ 
ing car. She gave the driver the number to which she 
wished to be driven, and settling herself near a none 
too-clean window, looked out upon the street of fash¬ 
ion into which the car immediately swung. 

The snow of last night had melted under the gentle 
persuasion of the day’s sun, and a procession of per¬ 
fectly groomed men and women embroidered the side¬ 
walks, while the street itself was patterned with motor¬ 
cars that moved or stopped in obedience to the 
blinking of a red or a green eye which alternately leered 
at them commandingly from a spectral structure. 
Gray-moustached, memory-haunted faces stared 
watery-eyed from the windows of men’s clubs. 
Over sophisticated errand girls in fretted silk stockings 


SANDRA 


183 


and dyed rabbit coats, jazzed ruthlessly through 
walls of pedestrians—unbelievably large hat or gown 
boxes serving them as rammers or buffers—coolly 
appraising with eyes that were startlingly old-young 
and uncannily wise, the individual fragments of the 
human wall through which they rammed so shatter- 
ingly. Cowed by a blinking signal a limousine slowed 
to a stop beside the Blair-bound taxi. A woman in a 
chinchilla wrap lolled against blue velour, and challeng- 
ingly blue smoke rings from a cigarette that tipped a 
diamond-studded onyx holder, into the smiling face 
of a distinctly foreign-looking male companion. 

The light in the phantom-like street structure, 
blinked off and another blinked on. The limousine with 
its interesting occupants shot forward and was lost to 
view. Sandra’s lips curved to a faint smile. The mael¬ 
strom ! The eddying current! If she were not actually 
a part of it, at least she was not in the back-wash, nor 
was she in a stagnant marsh. If Rusty would leave 
off harassing her, the world would yet belong to her 
as much as ever it had belonged to Monte Cristo. It 
was hard to believe that there existed Peters and 
Davids who had no envy for the Monte Cristoes—but 
were content to be isolated Robinson Crusoes! She 
shrugged uncomprehendingly, though at once her 
throat began to ache. 

Arrived at the apartment house in which Channing 
Blair had a leased, fire-proofed niche, Sandra refused 
autocratically to allow the hallboy to announce her. 
She entered the elevator with a majestic arrogance that 
completely won the respect of both its attendant and 
the defied hallboy. 


184 


SANDRA 


“Movie queen!” wagered the elevator operator when 
he had returned to the ground floor after depositing 
his passenger on the fifth fire-proofed stratum. # 

‘‘Like hell!” ridiculed the awed hallboy. “She’s the 
queen of Belgium or—something. Ain’t no movie 
queen ’at’s got this dame’s class, take it from me what 
used to work at the Waldorf!” 

Sandra rang the bell impatiently. She had rung 
twice with no response. She could not imagine what 
she would do in the event of the Blairs’ absence. She 
would not consider the possibility of their not being at 
home. They must be. They simply had to be. And 
sure enough there was somebody at home for the door 
opened the fraction of an inch, and a man’s voice 
wanted to know who was there and what the who might, 
be wanting. 

“Is that you, Channing?” asked Sandra hurriedly, 
afraid the door might shut itself peremptorily. “It’s 
I—Sandra Waring. Why on earth don’t you open the 
door more hospitably!” 

There was a sigh of relief from the other side of the 
door which at once swung wide. A man in a drab satin 
lounging robe beamed at her. 

“Sandra! Well, you did give me a fright!” He 
shook hands with her cordially. 

“Mercy! Am I that terrible!” 

“Didn’t see you clearly. Janet’s got a flock of de¬ 
tectives chasing me. Come up here like a fox goes to 
its hole, to escape, them; but they’re apt to be any¬ 
where. At my door—in my clothes closet—on the 
garbage dumb-waiter. Going to build myself a little 
subway and crawl down into it and live there like a 


SANDRA 185 

mole. Haven’t any more privacy than a goldfish in a 
glass globe and-” 

“Desist, Chan! One of us is delirious—insane. I 
can’t believe it’s I, though goodness knows, nobody else 
may doubt it. If you are the sane one, do hasten and 
tell me what you were talking about just now. Or were 
you talking, Chan? Don’t tell me I fancied that burst 
of incoherence!” 

The man laughed mirthlessly, fastened the waist cord 
of his dressing gown more securely, and laughed again 
by way of accenting his absolute mental balance. 

“Thought you’d heard about Janet trying to get a 
divorce! I’d let her grab off the damned thing if it 
wasn’t that she wants it packed solid with alimony. 
Isn’t satisfied with a reasonable wage. Wants to be 
a capitalist. Isn’t enough to divorce me—wants to 
divorce me from my checkbook! Funny, you and Dave 
haven’t heard about the mess. How is old David any¬ 
way? Bless the old duffer!” 

“He’s all right, I think, Channing. We’ve—that is 
—I’ve left him. But unlike Janet I don’t want—ali¬ 
mony. I want only to be left free to-” 

“Left David! Good God! What’s the matter with 
you women?” 

“A lot, I’m afraid, Chan. And what isn’t wrong with 
us is wrong with you men.” 

“But David! Salt of the earth! And you’ve left 
him!” 

Sandra nodded. 

“He is the salt of the earth, Chan. But I’m fool 
enough to want to choke myself with pepper!” 

“And you’ll do it, by gad! Remember your father 




186 


SANDRA 


perfectly. You’re him all over again, San. Got to 
gamble with something and the only thing handy is 
your happiness. You’re worse than Janet. She had 
a reason to leave me. Got the chorus-girl Flu and 
Janet caught me kissing one of the blonde germs. But 
you-” 

“Let me in, Chan. We can’t stand here discussing 
our domestic amputations across your doorstep.” 

“No, we can’t!” The man glanced apprehensively 
toward the latticed iron elevator doors. “One of those 
dirt-scenting beagles may pop up behind you at any 
minute and then—” he looked at Sandra in a manner 
meant to frighten her away—“Janet will name you in 
her petition. If you don’t want to be mentioned as 
the dreadful creature who robbed me of my innocence, 
you’d better clear out.” 

“I’m not afraid of your dirt-scenting beagles as you 
call them.” Sandra’s head reared contemptuously. 
“And I can’t believe, Chan, that you are altogether 
spineless. If you will not invite me in, I insist that you 
get yourself into garments less—conspicuous than that 
dejected-looking lounging robe. I’ll wait for you down¬ 
stairs. We’ll have dinner together. Must have din¬ 
ner with you, Chan. Have a clock—a rented-by-the- 
month clock in my new—home, and I can’t stand its 
miserable croaking.” 

“Can’t be a bit worse than the wedding-gift clock in 
this seven-rooms-and-bath. I get you, San, when you 
say it croaks. Gives me goose-flesh. Honest. Didn’t 
know anything could sound so infernally mournful. 
But—” he drew himself farther into the recess of his 
own hallway and frowned at Sandra discouragingly— 



SANDRA 


187 


“as for dining with you—having you wait for me down¬ 
stairs—why, I might as well borrow a megaphone and 
run up and down in front of Janet’s detective agency 
yelling out as loudly as I can, that I’m a beast and 
that I am at this minute going off trysting with a red¬ 
headed vamp. Heavens! San! Have a heart even if 
you haven’t a sense of loyalty to an old friend.” 

“I don’t think I have a heart, Chan, and the only 
sense I have is my sense of humor. Nevertheless, we 
are going to dine together. I shall sit down here in this 
sepulchral white-tiled corridor—right in front of your 
door where even a beagle with a cold in his nose can 
find me, and here I shall wait for you. If you don’t 
come out until morning, we shall breakfast together 
in some nearby coffee shop and read together about 
the woman who ‘dwells on Channing Blair’s doormat.’ 
I’m desperate, Chan.” 

“Glory! I like your spirit,” grinned the man in the 
doorway, weakening. “You’re like prewar wine, you 
wheedling witch! How the devil can an ordinary mor¬ 
tal—especially one that has eventuated in chorus girls 
—withstand the lure of a woman who could, if she chose 
to, upset empires?” 

Sandra smiled. 

“Thanks,” she replied. “That’s the first cheer that 
has come my way to-day. I think we’ll have an exhilar¬ 
ating evening, Chan, if you’ll hurry. We can say such 
delightful things to each other without fear that they 
will be taken seriously. I’ll flirt outrageously with you, 
Chan, just to get even with Janet for taking me to a 
stultifying bridge party one day three years ago, and 
you will make violent love to me, and—well, in an hour 


188 


SANDRA 


or two we’ll go our separate ways, calmer and happier 
cliff-dwellers than any who have waded through an 
evening of tiresome truth.” 

“Ploly Mackerel! I’ve been needing you, San! 
You’re a tonic. But—don’t wait in the downstairs 
foyer for heaven’s sake! There’s a sun parlor on the 
roof--” 

“One of those unheated places that look beautiful 
on a blueprint? No, thanks, Chan. I’ve no desire to 
be an arctic explorer. Though hot weather will have 
arrived before we have that dinner, if you don’t hurry.” 

Blair chuckled. 

“There’s a drug store on the corner. How’s that?” 

“All right.” 

“Sha’n’t be long, San. I’ll make it snappy.” 

“Do!” urged Sandra. 

And in the drug store, pretending to need toilet 
water, she made an unnecessary purchase, and smiled 
sadly within herself at the sort of Romance she was 
achieving. Poor old Channing Blair! Vivacious, snub¬ 
nosed Janet! Dear, shambling David! Discontented 
she! . . . And now she and Blair were going out to 
get away from the ticking of their clocks. 

Presently a good looking man of thirty-four or five 
wearing a dinner jacket under his gapping topcoat, 
jammed his way exuberantly through the revolving 
doors of the apothecary shop, and snatched her off to 
a waiting taxi. 

In the car he asked: 

“Why did you leave David! Will you tell me the 
truth, San?” 

“Why not ?” She gave him one of her amused, care- 



SANDRA 189 

less smiles. “According to our compact we are to lie 
only about our feeling for each other.” 

She made a slight gesture and Blair attempted to 
make her hand captive, but she shook her head at him 
and drew herself deeper into her voluminous fur wrap. 

“I left David,” she went on evenly, “because I could 
not be content with one man.” 

Blair shifted his position and stared at her. 

“You’re a thousand times worse than Janet. Janet 
is a sweet little thing and-” 

“Than deserve to be called a sweet little thing , I’d 
rather be the inspiration of a gunman. Sweet little 
thing! Why brand Janet with such watery terms, 
Chan? Call her anything else —anything but that.” 

“Dave used to say you had a gatling—rapid fire sort 
of mind. I’ll say he knew what he was talking about.” 
He paused, sighing audibly. “And so,” he began again, 
“you’re acknowledgedly polygamous! First woman I 
ever heard of who would confess to such depravity.” 

“Is it depravity, Chan? Yes? Then what a lot of 
men are depraved. Pity, isn’t it! Nearly all men are 
polygamous. Many women are, too, though not con¬ 
fessedly—often not more than mentally. Men seek 
and ravage their prey. Women seek no less rabidly— 
lure no less consciously, but most often their indiscre¬ 
tions are performed in the mind only. The mind is 
so much more clandestine than a seat in a theater be¬ 
side some other woman’s husband. It is safer to think 
of a stolen kiss than it is to actually partake of one. 
And it is almost as entertaining to fancy one’s self as 
listening to love words from lips that do not belong to 



190 


SANDRA 


one’s own matter-of-fact husband, as it is to arrive 
physically at that dangerous state of affairs.” 

“I don’t understand-” 

“No?” she looked at him with kind intolerance. 
“Have you not often,” she asked, “in your most inti¬ 
mate moments with Janet—imagined that you were 
holding in your arms some other woman?” 

“But you—” Blair cleared his throat uneasily, “you 
women! Surely you don’t—can’t—I mean-” 

“And why not! Are we infringing on the right of 
man if we imagine what is, let us say, pleasant? Ah, 
Chan, I’m afraid women are hedging in on what has 
long been your most exclusive dissipations! Person¬ 
ally I have no sordid physical appetites. I can’t re¬ 
call ever having been actually hungry even for food. I 
am not particularly aesthetic. Too much the barbarian 
for that. But I do abhor all that is vulgar. There¬ 
fore my fancies—my wildest imaginings—have never 
been of things purely carnal. A kiss to me would be 
nothing as—a kiss. To really touch me it must be 
a part of romance.” 

“Love!” Channing Blair made a wry face. “In other 
words you’re not in love with man—any man. You’re 
in love with love.” 

“Your interpretation of my malady may be correct,” 
conceded Sandra. “I don’t know. With David I 
chafed against bondage. It was not that I wanted to 
be free to love some other man. Rather was it that I 
rebelled against a law which dared to shackle me. Re¬ 
straint ! I can’t endure restraint.” 

“And now that you are free,” remarked Blair, “I 




SANDRA 191 

* 

suppose you will go in for all the things against which 
you have been accustomed to restrain yourself!” 

She inclined her head absorbedly. 

“If that is so,” went on her companion, “why not 
begin by taking a dose of some deadly poison? By the 
knowledge of the rigid law of poison you have been 
restrained all your life from taking a pretty little tab¬ 
let of arsenic or bichloride of mercury. Hating re¬ 
straint and finding yourself, as you say, now free from 
it, well, the tablet-” 

“Don’t be asinine!” 

The man sobered. 

“I’m trying to show you, Sandra, that all life is 
restraint.” 

“It shall not be for me! I should take the tablet if 
I wanted it. But it would hurt and why should I be 
wanting to hurt? No. It is not restraint that keeps 
me from taking that. It is instinct—the instinct for 
self-preservation.” 

Blair threw out his hands in a gesture of defeat. 

“If I were a lawyer instead of a half-baked broker, 
I’d know how to shoot your arguments full of holes. As 
it is—well, you’ll see! When one determines to live 
an unrestrained life he is metaphorically, if not in 
reality, taking the deadly little tablet of which I spoke.” 

“Never mind, Chan. If there’s a tablet at the bot¬ 
tom of my glass of adventure, I shall have sipped the 
wine to reach it. There are always dregs at the bot¬ 
tom if one wants to look for them. I refuse, however, 
to see them. I’m looking at the bubbles.” 

“What a golden creature you are after all!” cried 
Blair impulsively. “Gad! You’ll go through life like 



192 


SANDRA 


a brilliant comet, leaving searing sparks behind you! 
Your father used to call you his golden nugget! Think 
he meant the gold of your scintillant mind!” 

Sandra frowned. Then her brow cleared and she 
turned her dusk-shadowed face toward the man and 
smiled enigmatically, her translucent eyes veiled by 
their fringe of long lashes. 

“I’m not gold, Chan. I’m pot metal.* 9 

An hour and a half later Sandra was back in her 
rented home, thankful that she had escaped the hideous¬ 
ness of dining alone, sorry for the friend of her child¬ 
hood, whose gay exterior had not successfully hidden 
from her the hurt that was in his heart, and more than 
a little incensed against a Janet who thought a suffi¬ 
cient sum of money could pay her for the mad mo¬ 
ments her husband had spent in the arms of another 
woman. What a sickening thing was this business of 
alimony! 

She laughed mirthlessly as she began to undress her¬ 
self. No doubt Janet’s opinion of her, could she know 
what she had done, would be even less flattering. Janet 
would view her action aghast. It was all a matter of 
perspective. A mother never sees the ugliness of her 
own child. 

She stifled a sigh, but she could not still the trem¬ 
bling of her hands. Rusty was there with her, and 
behind her determined humming of a song, she could 
hear Rusty’s heartbroken sobbing. 

When she had brushed her long hair—the red of a 
frost-touched maple leaf—and creamed the cosmetics 
from her milk-white skin, she sat for a long time star¬ 
ing at herself in the mirror, but for once she was not 


SANDRA 


193 


looking at the reflected face. She was looking past 
it—at the days of the years she had spent with David, 
and she was finding them more beautiful now that she 
looked back upon them, than they had been to her 
as she had lived them. She had consorted with happi¬ 
ness and she had deserted this happiness to satisfy a 
discontent. 

She reached out a hand suddenly and laid it against 
the face in the glass. 

“How can I be rid of you, Rusty! How can I!” 
she cried, trying to be whimsical. “You’re a thousand 
times worse than the clock. Your vocabulary is more 
extensive. And, too, a clock has no memories. It isn’t 
ghost-haunted.” She laughed and her laughter was 
accompanied by a half-muted sobbing. 

She rose with a leisurely, care-free air, stretched her 
beautiful arms high above her head, looked with a too 
intent interest at a nondescript etching on the wall, 
and with unhurried movements switched off the lights 
and flung up the window. 

She lay for an interval quite still between the cool 
sheets of her strange bed, her hot eyes staring into the 
darkness that had engulfed her, then she lifted herself 
to an elbow and reaching an exploring hand through the 
dense blackness to the small night stand, extracted 
from its shallow drawer a smelly old pipe, and touch¬ 
ing it tenderly to her lips, whispered to it a teary good¬ 
night. 

It was three thousand miles and two years from this 
room and this night that she again saw Channing Blair. 


CHAPTER XIV 


D URING the days that followed Sandra renewed 
a few old acquaintances, made several new ones 
and contrived one way and another to spend 
little time alone. Gania Bartelle returned to New 
York after a week at Lake Placid, where, much to her 
frank disgust, she had learned that early winter was 
an off season at this resort, and that like Palm Beach, 
it had but one really important month—February, and 
finding upon her arrival at home a note from Sandra 
mailed two days previous, taxied to Sandra’ address 
forthwith. She had accepted Sandra’s brief explana¬ 
tion of her new manner of living, without questions or 
comment. She stood a little in awe of Sandra, whose 
queer flights of speech left her often mentally stranded, 
and making no pretense of understanding her, she was 
nevertheless frankly proud to know her. She became 
a sort of lady in waiting to Sandra. And to the Bo¬ 
hemians of Greenwich Village to whom Gania intro¬ 
duced her, Sandra became a kind of insolent empress. 

There were dinners and dances and an occasional 
soiree, and there were evenings at the theater compan¬ 
ioned by blase newspaper critics of the play. It was 
at the theater that Sandra found her greatest pleas¬ 
ure. Here she became submerged by the drama on the 
stage—suffocated by romance to a self-unconsciousness. 
The columniets watched her vivid face with fresh inter¬ 
im 


SANDRA 


195 


est in their jaded journalistic eyes. They competed for 
her favor. They sent her flowers and baskets of choice 
fruits. They became awkward as schoolboys under her 
most cursory glance, whereas an appraising scrutiny 
from her amused, green eyes sent them into paroxysms 
of anguish at thought that she had discovered their 
pearl studs to be imitatibn, or the fact that the erst¬ 
while tuxedo was of last season’s tailoring. 

They had known no one like her—these men of the 
press into whose thick Gania had brought her. She 
was as unfathomable as the Sphinx. Trite as this com¬ 
parison was, they found themselves forever making it. 
And mystery piqued them to constant interest. They 
studied her frankly, some of them getting themselves 
badly burned in the process. They found her a hereto¬ 
fore unknown quantity. She was not a clinging vine, 
nor was she an oak. Neither submissive nor militant. 
She had sharp opinions on matters brought forth for 
discussions but she would not argue. If one succeeded 
in proving her opinion to be without foundation—to be 
entirely erroneous, she immediately invalidated his vic¬ 
tory by an indifferent shrugging of her shoulders, or 
an amused satirical smile of her carmined lips. 

They found her flexible—pliant. They came to know 
that she could, with charming grace, adapt herself to 
almost any environment and to the varying moods of 
her friends. But they came also to know that she was 
not flaccid. Her brilliance of mind delighted them. It 
was, they decided, as many faceted as a diamond, with 
each facet radiating individually toward a dazzling 
ensemble. She was irreligious, but not blasphemous. 
They had known no other woman who examined the 


196 


SANDRA 


religions of the day with intelligence sans superstition. 
They had known no other member of her sex who, 
without fear of eternal damnation, would frankly admit 
her inability to accept without question the belief in 
an immortal, man-like God. 

These men came also to respect her boundaries of 
familiarity. She would listen, sophisticatedly to a 
risque story when it was in the telling at a dinner or 
a studio party where there were a dozen or more other 
listeners, but alone with any one of them, she would 
lead the conversation with adroit ease into more digni¬ 
fied channels. A man might press her facile fingers 
when he bade her goodnight at the entrance to the 
building in which she lived, might lift those fingers to 
his kiss, but without ever having brought the matter to 
issue, each of her admirers knew that her lips were 
inviolable. 

Who she was—where she came from—or how she 
lived were secrets intact. She was Sandra Dawley, 
friend of Gania Bartelle, and since neither she nor 
Gania volunteered information, there was naturally 
none to be had. They built up around her, each in¬ 
dividual according to his own fancy, a mild or a wild 
past, and she became more than ever interesting. 

She was a romanticist with inspiring ideas about the 
drama and intriguing, fertilizing questions about life. 
She could be sharply, delightfully, astonishingly frank. 
She was never indelicate. She was sparkling wine even 
in her most languid moments, and beside her other 
women were as milk. 

On occasion at the theater or opera she would awaken 
to the apparent interest which her strange beauty and 


SANDRA 


197 


her bizarre manner of dress excited, and turning delib¬ 
erately to meet the admiring gaze of those occupying 
seats nearest hers, she would coolly survey them 
through half-lowered lids, a faint, triumphant smile 
rippling fleetingiy across her crimson mouth, invar¬ 
iably followed, as one of her escorting paragraphers 
had observed, by a breathless little sigh and a quizzical 
lifting of her artificially shaped brows. 

On other occasions in contrast to this obvious weigh¬ 
ing and measuring of the tributes to her beauty, she 
would appear to be utterly oblivious to the ogling and 
to the audibly whispered complimentary remarks which 
buzzed round her between acts. One could not, how¬ 
ever, be certain whether she were actually oblivious or 
—only bored. She was the more alluring—because of 
this unfathomableness—this gaugelessness—this baf¬ 
fling opacity. One might as well try to gauge the 
depth of a lake by looking at its scintillant frozen sur¬ 
face. 

A man’s profession seemed to be of no vast impor¬ 
tance to her. But it was easy to see that his polish, 
his ability to observe trifling formalities with unstudied 
naturalness, were of paramount value. To interest her 
ever so little a man had need of intellect, grace and 
ease of manner, and some sort of social prestige. These 
qualities appeared to satisfy her intellectual and artis¬ 
tic cravings. Audacity of a kind seemed to feed a 
hunger for excitement. Yet no man who came to know 
her was able to say to himself that he could interpret 
the workings of the mind behind those fascinatingly in¬ 
scrutable green eyes. 

Two or three young men—inexperienced cubs—sue- 


198 


SANDRA 


Climbed to her indescribable allure. One of them came 
to be so violently in love with her that his pitying 
friends admired her even more deeply and. with a new 
deference, when with apparent intent she slashed merci¬ 
lessly into his vulnerable vanity, thereby entirely alien¬ 
ating him. It was to her credit that she would accept 
homage only from her contemporaries. Added, then, 
to the other requisites, prestige, intellect, and grace of 
manner, was the unspoken demand that an admirer 
be in his thirties. 

Older men, suave men-about-town who were lay mem¬ 
bers of this unorganized studio league, found mature 
relish in her golden personality—food for fancy in her 
unusual mysteriousness. They bombarded her with 
favors which she accepted with the cool manner of a 
queen deigning to permit subjects to lay offerings at 
her feet. Whether these men expected favor in return 
cannot be positively known, but there was in her man¬ 
ner of acceptance an air of condescension and definite 
finality which made debt, if such there was supposed to 
be, null and void—automatically cancelled. 

William James Hapgood saw her one night at a 
theater. She was sitting between two conventionally 
attired men, a fur wrap drawn carelessly across one 
shoulder, her long white neck rising like a marble col¬ 
umn above her bare colorless back, which since she was 
leaning slightly forward, showed to the waistline where 
joined triangles of black lace, doubtless the scant ends 
of what was perhaps in front some sort of decollete 
bodice. Her russet hair was piled on the top of her 
shapely head in that disorder of waves and curls that 
was so poignantly familiar to Hapgood. 



SANDRA 


199 


He was two rows behind her. He had come in late, 
and had taken his seat perfunctorily and with a com¬ 
plete lack of eagerness. He had need of diversion. The 
play offered this, and he had come. But almost im¬ 
mediately he had adjusted himself for the evening’s 
entertainment, his mind had become absorbed with 
thoughts of Sandra Waring. Waking, sleeping, walk¬ 
ing, talking, his mind was dominated by thoughts of 
her. They stole upon him in his pulpit and tore to 
shreds his carefully prepared sermons. Her face pic¬ 
tured itself against the pages of his Bible when he 
looked down to read his text. Her flagrantly rouged 
lips smiled satirically, and her jade eyes met his de¬ 
risively. And at the anger which he could feel blazing 
down at her from his own indignant eyes there would 
come that magic transformation. Her smile would 
soften to a warm tenderness. Her eyes would melt to 
a sweet translucence. 

He had gone twice to the house in Washington 
Square. On the morning immediately following his 
visit there, he had gone to tell her that he would go 
away with her—away from David and—the church. 
He had gone there to throw his shamed, guilt-tortured, 
passion-driven self at her feet, half-mad with want of 
her. And he had not found her. She had gone. He 
went again a day or two later, and the janitress who 
answered his ring told him that the lady had not re¬ 
turned and that she had left no address. He had tried 
to ask about the friend whose apartment Sandra had 
occupied. He had wanted to know if Stephen Wins¬ 
low were there. But the words would not shape them- 


200 


SANDRA 


selves to his lips, and he went away more wretched than 
ever. 

David had not communicated with him since Sandra’s 
abandonment of him, and he had not had the courage 
to get in touch with David. Too, he was overwhelmed 
with a sense of guilt. He was none the less a Judas 
because he was not at this moment with his friend’s 
wife. It was not to his credit that he was not with 
her. Credit was to her that she had sent him back to 
his church in a moment when she must have known that 
all the needs of his life had dwarfed beside his need of 
her. Of the two, Sandra Waring was made of finer 
stuff than he! Whatever she did she was not being the 
traitor to her standards, whereas he had at least and 
still was, breaking a rigid commandment. Coveting his 
neighbor’s wife. 

And yet—and yet . . . with all his fervent faiths 
outraged and his mind shocked at the want in his 
heart, William James Hapgood was hopelessly in love 
with Sandra. Moreover he recognized the hopeless¬ 
ness of his madness—went even a little sick at thought 
of what he would sacrifice could he make it less hope¬ 
less. But his natural strength of will was enervated. 
He had scarcely the wish to overcome the sweet poison 
that weakened him. Times without number he had 
told himself that he was glad she had secluded herself 
from him. But to-night when the curtain had gone 
down at the end of the first act and the lights flaring 
on brought her out of the darkness to him, he knew 
how poignantly he had ached for sight of her. 

He got up from his seat and made his way past those 
persons sitting between him and the aisle, with eyes 


SANDRA 


201 


that saw only that white stalk of a neck with its russet 
flower-like head. And then he was at the end of her 
row and she was but two seats away. She saw him 
almost at once. It was as though her attention was 
drawn by the heat of his gaze, as a flower is persuaded 
to turn its face to the sun. Her eyes dilated, narrowed. 
Then her lips parted breathlessly. 

“Jimsy!” She half rose. Her fur wrap fell from 
her and one of her escorts hastened to lay it solicit¬ 
ously back to the shoulder where she had wanted it. 

It was a second or two before Hapgood could make 
his numb lips obey his will. 

“I—I’ve been wanting to see you,” he said finally. 

Her gaze held his for a moment questioningly. Then 
she turned with brief apologies to her friends. Would 
they pardon her if she visited through the interim be¬ 
tween acts with the gentleman who wanted to see 
her? That was nice. She was most grateful. 

The gentlemen stood politely. She made her way 
out to the aisle, then down the aisle to the promenade, 
beside the tall clerical-looking man, whose brown eyes 
appeared to be consuming her. When they had reached 
the promenade she stopped abruptly. 

“You—you’ve something to say about—David! 
What is it!” 

Hapgood shrank at her words. How strange that 
she should think he would be wanting to see her only 
to tell her news of—David! 

“No,” he said, his jaws tight, “I’ve nothing to say 
about—anybody except you and—and me. You told 
me once that love was the only thing in the world that 
really counted. You were right.” 


202 


SANDRA 


“Jimsy!” She looked at him more closely, took note 
of the misery in his nice brown eyes, saw the taut mus¬ 
cles of his lean cheeks, and was at once alive to the 
wretchedness into which she had plunged him. 

“Jimsy,” she whispered, “I can’t tell you how sorry 
I am that my madness trained you for—for this!” 

66 1 don’t want your pity,” he said frowning. “I— 
I want you, Sandra. You left me no word—no-” 

“I sent you back to your church, Jimsy.” 

“But first you had taken me away from it!” he 
reminded bitterly. “It is perhaps proof of my un¬ 
worthiness that I came from it more easily than I can 
return to it.” 

“I—didn’t know. I didn’t realize,” she said, her 

tone soft with remorse. 

“Sandra!” He caught her bare arm with fingers 
that were trembling. “Give me your address. Let me 
come to see you. Let me come in the morning—to talk 
with you.” 

She drew him with her into a shadowy corner away 
from curious eyes, and releasing her arm from his 
grasp, looked up at him understandingly. 

“You can come to-night, Jimsy. You—can take me 
home.” 

“To-night! But those—men.” He jerked his head 
toward the aisle down which they had just come. 

She arched her brows. 

“They will excuse me,” she said simply. “I must 
take care of you. That is enough.” 

There was a gallantry about her that put an ache 
in the clergyman’s throat. She was sweetly, indescrib¬ 
ably chivalrous. She would defend him against him- 



SANDRA 


203 


self. Save him if she could from ignominy. He knew 
this. Appreciated it. Loved her the more for it. But 
it did not make him happy. He had at this moment 
no wish to be saved. He had no wish for anything on 
earth but to be near her. She could laugh at him if 
she would. She might even laugh at his God, and 
though her laughter would burn corroding wounds in 
his soul, his heart would go on loving her. That Wins¬ 
low cad had said she was toxic! Well, she was. And 
he had been inoculated with the virus of her charm. 
She was insidious as opium. She caught the senses— 
laughed with them, then at them, and finally she mas¬ 
tered them. But what addict of opium denies its de¬ 
lights ? 

His flesh had been subordinate to his spirit, until it 
had felt the lure of her that first night when she had 
stood on the Waring veranda and looked up at the 
stars—she had run the scalpel of her disbelief through 
the very heart of his creed, but as she did it, standing 
there as she was, looking up at the stars, her draper¬ 
ies had reached out with a breeze and caught at him 
with silken suggestiveness, and he had leaned close—so 
close that the perfume of her hair was in his nostrils, 
her breath on his cheek—and . . . she had reminded 
him that she belonged to David and that he belonged 
to his—church. 

And then that night in the Washington Square 
apartment . . . had she yielded to his love he could 
have gone from her chilled with disgust and loathing. 
Passions cooled are passions dead. But she had sent 
him away. Sent him back to his church. And this had 
fired his want of her. Haloed her despite her unright- 


204 


SANDRA 


eousness. He had made virtue of her gallantry. Oh, 
he was not so intoxicated that he thought himself sober. 
He was shamefully drunk—staggeringly drunk, and he 
knew that he was unfit to step his feet within the sacred 
precincts of his House of God, but knowing this did 
not help him to become sober. That other night—down 
there in Washington Square—tasting of evil would no 
doubt have made his soul vomit. He would have come 
naturally back to his church as a nauseated child to its 
parent. But now—having dreamed of the evil—and 
having considered past all chance of nausea the pos¬ 
sible relationship existing between the woman he loved 
and a cad named Winslow, he had become hardened to 
what at that other time would have been revolting. 

“You cannot send me away,” he warned in a low 
tense voice. “I shall not go.” 

She smiled indulgently. 

Ah,” she said, with something of her former mock¬ 
ing manner, “that sounds perilously like my old Simon- 
Called-Peter.” 

“Call me anything you like,” he said, a dark color 
rising slowly in his earnest face. “But don’t send me 
away from you.” 

“But your—God, Jimsy!” she rebuked gently. 

“I am not the first of His unworthy disciples to turn 
from Him to to earthly love,” he returned thickly. 

You are in love with me, Jimsy, not nearly so much 
as you are with Him. Only because He invites you 
to come , and I tell you to go away , you choose me. I 
am less attainable therefore more enticing. 
There’s the signal for the curtain. Wait for me here, 
Jimsy, after the show.” 


SANDRA 


205 


She ran a hand caressingly down his arm, pressed 
his inert fingers friendlily and hurried off down the 
already darkening aisle. 

An hour and a half later her two escorts bade her a 
reluctant goodnight, and watched her rather regret¬ 
fully as she made her way out of the theater with the 
ecclesiastical stranger to whom she had not introduced 
them. She had avoided mention of his name when she 
explained to them the necessity of a visit with this man 
who had broken in upon their evening. That he had 
come out of her silent past, they did not doubt, and 
that he was in love with her they were certain. Beyond 
that they knew nothing—dared to ask nothing. They 
stood together without speaking, each busy with his 
own thoughts, as the clergyman with lifted arm made 
a way for her through the congested foyer. People 
turned to look at her as she passed. Her half-regal, 
half-insolent, wholly fascinating beauty held their at¬ 
tention. Aggressive men and impatient women who 
gave way before her, stood for an instant staring 
at her after she had gone on. She looked like 
somebody. Walked like somebody. Must be that she 
was somebody. She was like a woman from the story 
of a play, or one come to life from the pages of a book. 
There was an aura of romance about her. 

And the two young newspaper men staring after her 
were consciously proud of her. The mystery of her 
flavored their lives. She was, in fact, the very essence 
of romance. She was adventure made tangible. To be 
with her was to experience curious vibrations of excite¬ 
ment. She was magnetically, physically and mentally 
high-powered. There was no gauging her voltage. 


206 SANDRA 

Might as well try to reduce lightning to terms of watts 
and amperes. 

During the short drive to the house in the west Fif¬ 
ties Hapgood was moodily silent. Sandra made one or 
two efforts at conversation, but his monosyllabic re¬ 
sponses discouraged her. A half sad, half-deprecatory 
smile flickered across her mouth. She settled herself 
in her corner and switching on the little light above 
their heads, inspected him narrowly. 

Her gaze was curiously analytical. She gave him 
the measuring, calculating attention with which a chem¬ 
ist studies the workings of a new and strange and pos¬ 
sibly dangerous compound. Now and then her smile 
hardened to cynicism, but at once it would soften to 
remorse. 

Alone with him in her living room, she flung off her 
furs and dropped into a chair with a gesture of invita¬ 
tion toward another chair a few feet distant. Her 
visitor ignored her invitation. He remained standing, 
his eyes commanding and focal, his soft felt hat twisted 
into a roll between his two vein-corded hands. 

She lit a cigarette and regarded him thoughtfully. 
What she should do with him she did not know. Poor 
old Jimsy who had called her Sandra-the-Heartless! 
What irony that she should be saving his soul—she 
whose own soul was papier mache! He had splendid 
eyes . . . and that night at the Ritz . . . she could 
still feel his arms clasping her close, his heart hammer¬ 
ing against her breast. Perhaps the great passion- 

But no. Whether or not his God were the real God, 
his influence in the world was for good. Weak women 
without her courage to go astray would sit between 



SANDRA 


207 


the stained-glass windows of his church and harken to 
his warnings of damnation, his admonitions to keep 
their lives unsullied by sin. Men with whom he came 
in contact would be the cleaner for having known him. 
Children listening sleepily to sermons of his which they 
did not understand, would generate through their lives, 
decencies that would spring from the seeds which he 
had planted in their subconsciousness. 

Yes, certainly. She must send him back again to his 
church. And this time she must provide him with a 
desire to—remain there. 

“You will not sit down?” she inquired politely. 

“You are trying to be formal with me!” he flashed 
resentfully. “You who defy all conventions!” 

“Conventions!” She snapped her fingers. “There 
are few of the poor things left, Jimsy. They belong 
to the old regime when-” 

“When married women did not attend the theater 
with two men neither of whom was her husband!” he 
interrupted savagely. 

“Exactly!” She gave him a luminous smile. How 
strange that he did not see the humor of his remark! 
Again it was a matter of perspective. 

“To the old regime!” he repeated scornfully. 

“To a simpler age, Jimsy,” she added. “The age in 
which the respectable woman blandly and foolishly 
refused to recognize the harlot as her rival. She didn’t 
know, or didn’t want to know, that the science of com¬ 
petition had entered the business of love and marriage.” 

“I don’t want to talk about another age,” he cried, 
twisting his hat savagely. “I want to talk about—you, 
Sandra. You and me.” 



208 


SANDRA 


“In a moment, Jimsy . . . You’re going to find fault 
with my way of living. Even if I ran away with you, 
or rather allowed you to run away with me, you would 
still try to fit me to your narrow conventions—still try 
to make me a good person according to—the standards 
of your church. Let me tell you, Jknsy dear, what I 
heard Father Dufl'y, hero of the World War, say in 
criticism of the class you represent and of the class I 
represent. He said in effect that the good fellows were 
not good enough people and that the good people were 
not good enough fellows. Apropos: the good woman 
used to make herself a prudish bore and as a conse¬ 
quence her men acquaintances accepted her standards 
as they accepted when necessary, doses of castor oil, 
and they flew from her to some gay voluptuary whose 
hail-fellow-well-met nlanner was a peppermint lozenge 
delightfully welcome to the outraged palate. . . . 

“You remind me that I am breaking the conventions. 
Conventions,” she repeated the word with flippant 
scorn, “are good only as incarcerating iron bars for 
mental defectives!” 

She would not allow him to interrupt. She went on 
with a sort of fevered haste. 

“There are, nevertheless, certain formalities the 
ignoring of which I will not forgive. I can sympathize 
with a man who breaks stupid laws but I could not for¬ 
give a man the offense of dancing awkwardly or that 
of wearing to a theater a plaid waistcoat.” 

She was talking at random with but a vague idea of 
how she was to accomplish the alienating of this friend 
whom she really wanted so much to keep. Her mind 


SANDRA 209 

ran haphazard toward any direction that promised the 
chance of a quarrel. 

She observed that the spasmodically moving hands 
had ceased to twist the felt hat, and as a satisfied smile 
came to her lips, Hapgood flung himself into the chair 
to which she had invited him, and looked at her hag- 
gardly. 

“I wish you were less convincing,” he said slowly. 
“It is this ability of yours to make black seem white 
that is so damning. ... I don’t want to whitewash my 
—my desire to he with you. I don’t want-” 

“Nor shall we whitewash it, Jimsy,” she soothed. 
After a short silence she said: “I can see what I have 
done to you. I am sorry. In the very beginning I 
ripped out from under you your best loved principles 
and though at first you were aghast, you came finally 
to look on with a feeling that I was progress removing 
obsolete, useless plumbing. You were guiltily grateful. 
But when you were gone from me—freed from whatever 
it was that had convinced you—whether my words, my 
tone or my personality—you backslid. Alone you 
looked back upon what I had done and you saw me as 
vandal, a reckless, desecrating vandal, tearing out the 
vitals of Society’s structure. Was it not so, Jimsy?” 
Her tone was as persuasive as the softest note of a 
cello. 

He made a gesture with his head. 

“It is different now,” he said almost apologetically. 

“Because, Jimsy, I have—debauched you!” 

“Because,” he cried, half rising, “you have made me 
see the importance of this earthly existence. You have 
taught me to expect something from it.” He stood up. 



210 


SANDRA 


his face white, pulses hammering visibly in his tem¬ 
ples. “Well,” he laughed harshly, “I’ve come to col¬ 
lect.” 

Sandra blew a smoke ring with leisurely grace. She 
gazed at him through the cloud into which it dissolved 
with calm, undisturbed eyes. 

“And are you willing to accept as payment spurious 
coin?” 

“Whatever you are—that shall satisfy me!” He 
was standing over her now, his eyes looking hungrily 
down at her lifted face. 

“I’m counterfeit, Jimsy. I’m not true. Not true 
even to—myself—-to the love that is in my heart.” 

He fell back a step. 

“Who—is he?” he demanded. “What man do you 
love? That cad Winslow? Or is he—is he one of those 
two with whom you were to-night? Answer me!” He 
bent over until his face was close to hers, his breath 
coming in hot gusts against her cheek. 

Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Then with a little 
resigned smile she rose, made an impatient gesture and 
with feigned annoyance asked him to excuse her for a 
moment. 

He stared at her stupidly as she moved unhurriedly 
across the room, and when she had vanished into the 
room beyond he continued to stare at the door through 
which she had gone. 

In a half minute she was back again in the door, 
holding some object toward him, her lips parted breath¬ 
lessly, her eyes meeting his with mute explanation. 

“What is it?” he asked, staring at the thing in her 
hand. Then, as the object became clear to his vision: 


SANDRA 


211 


“A pipe!” His voice sank to a husky whisper. 
“Whose?” 

“This,” said Sandra Waring, watching him closely, 
“belongs to the man I love.” 

“It is Winslow’s ! The cad in whose apartment-” 

For just an instant Sandra wavered, then her brows 
lifted and she smiled carelessly. 

“And why should it not be?” she asked defiantly. 

“My God!” Hapgood drew a hand dazedly across 
his moist brow. “You—you wanton!” 

Sandra touched the pipe to her cheek. 

“Ah, Jimsy! Love is everything!” She laughed 
softly as she caressed the old briar pipe. “Even if you 
are not—exactly true to it.” 

“I—I was prepared,” he stammered, trying to focus 
his blurred eyes upon her, “for a—confession to an 
affair with—with that libertine. I was even prepared,” 
he moistened his parched lips, “to forget it. I—I 
wanted you—so. But—” His voice broke and it was 
only through supreme effort that he could continue 
to articulate. “But I was not,” he went on finally, 
“prepared for— this!” 

Sandra looked at him pityingly for the space of a 
long breath, then patting a loosened curl into place at 
the top of her head, she tossed the pipe onto a table 
and approached him with outstretched hands. 

“Of course,” she said archly, lifting her red mouth 
to him invitingly, “if you still want me-” 

“Want you!” cried the unhappy man. “How can 
you ask! My God! What manner of woman are you?” 
He pushed her from him, his eyes blazing, his lips 
trembling. 




212 


SANDRA 


When the door had slammed shut behind him, Sandra 
stood for an instant looking at the spot from which 
he had denounced her. It seemed to rise from the car¬ 
pet in the shape of a pulpit, and from above a Bible a 
pair of condemning eyes were meeting hers. 

She put up a hand to shut out the sight, and through 
her tense fingers seeped two hot trickling streams. 

She shook the moisture impatiently from her fingers 
and turned with a little shrug to the table. She 
touched with a tentative finger the pipe which lay there, 
and a look of ineffable sadness slid like a shadow across 
her face. 

“Sorry I had to put you to such loathsome use,” 
she apologized tenderly. “It was to save Jimsy. Poor 
old Jimsy! Jimsy-Af raid-Of-Me! Simon-Called- 
Peter! He had to be sent back to his-” 

Her telephone bell interrupted her. She hastened 
to answer it. 

“Oh, it’s you!” she cried disappointedly. 

“No. Oh, no! I wasn’t expecting it to be—anybody 
else. Why—why should I be? It’s an unearthly 
hour! 

“What time is it?” she inquired . . .“Ah! Not so 
late as I thought!” She made an effort to speak calmly. 
Then, in reply to some question from the other end: 
“Gone, of course. He stayed but a few minutes. . . . 
A supper! Really! Where? . . . At Barney’s studio! 
How delightful! Phone to him before you call round 
for me, that I’m in a mad mood. I shall be wanting 
cocktails and wine! And hurry! Come for me as 
quickly as you can!” 



CHAPTER XV 


O N an evening two weeks after HapgoocPs un¬ 
happy talk with Sandra, David Waring was 
shown into the clergyman’s study by an obse¬ 
quious manservant. When this servant had announced 
the caller, Hapgood, intensely conscious of guilt, had 
squared his jaws and determined to face the issue. He 
deserved anything which David might say or do to 
him. He would offer no defense. If Sandra had re¬ 
turned to the shelter of David’s home—if dull respec¬ 
tability had reclaimed her, then God had heard his 
prayers and for that he would gladly forfeit anything. 
He would have pawned his soul to have won her. He 
would give his life could he know that once more she 
was safe with David. 

David came into the room with outstretched hand 
and a booming word of greeting, and though Hapgood 
was relieved that his friend did not hate him, he felt 
less comfortable than he would have felt had David’s 
outstretched hand struck itself across his face. What¬ 
ever else had happened, David had not learned that his 
friend was a Judas. This fact did not lessen Hap- 
good’s almost overpowering consciousness of guilt. He 
busied himself with some papers on his desk, thereby 
avoiding David’s handclasp. He might justifiably 
leave David in his ignorance, since knowledge of a 
friend’s unworthiness would only lacerate his loyal 
heart, but he would not be an Iscariot to the extent of 
taking David’s hand. 


213 


214 


SANDRA 


They talked for a little while about topics of thi 
day, each of them filled mentally with but one subject. 
Then David, no longer able to withstand his desire to 
talk to his friend about Sandra, spoke of her—at first 
tentatively, after which, at the other man’s silence, he 
plunged into a rushing torrent of words. She had left 
him—Sandra! Did William know that? But she would 
be coming back! And they’d be happier for the separa¬ 
tion. He’d been selfish with her-—could see that now. 
And he’d not been the lover he might have been. Had 
William noticed when he had been with them his matter- 
of-fact treatment of her? He hadn’t? Strange. He 
himself could see, now that he looked back critically, 
that he had not been attentive enough. Not nearly. 

And selfish! Hapgood could have no idea how sel¬ 
fish he had been with her. Forced his pleasures to be¬ 
come her habits. Had tried to absorb her. Oh, yes, 
he had! Precisely what he had done. And always she’d 
wanted to see the ‘great world’. He had laughed at her 
talk about Venice. Had actually laughed at her roman¬ 
ticisms! It just hadn’t occurred to him that he might 
enter into some of her schemes. He’d been blind. Self- 
centered. 

He d told Mate Stanley—the girl who lived next 
door to him, and only God knew what he’d have done 
these past wretched days without her—that he’d not 
been worthy of Rusty! Told her that every day since 
Sandra had taken Rusty away. But if only she would 
come back—and she would come back—didn’t William 
think she would come back?—he’d show her a new 
David. He’d pack up his things and go off nosing 
into strange places with her and Sandra. She’d like 


SANDRA 215 

that—would Sandra. Always said she couldn’t die 
until she had come to know the world—wanted to see 
the other side of all its corners! Queer idea—that! 
Didn’t belong to Rusty—just a madness of Sandra’s. 
Funny, how he’d stubbornly refused to recognize San¬ 
dra’s rights. Took the meek, yielding part of her— 
Rusty—and shut his eyes to the Sandra who could not 
be absorbed. Well, when they came back—Rusty and 
Sandra—life for them should be on a fifty-fifty basis, 
and not the former ninety-ten. They’d be immeasur¬ 
ably happy. William should see! 

The manservant came noiselessly into the study and 
with a deferential bow, laid an evening newspaper on 
the desk between the two men. The door closed behind 
the servant with a faint creak, but neither Hapgood nor 
Waring heard it. A caption simultaneously caught 
both pairs of eyes. 

MRS. CHANNING BLAIR NAMES SANDRA WAR¬ 
ING AS ONE OF THE CORESPONDENTS 
IN HER PETITION FOR DIVORCE! 

Bringing their gaze to focal, they read on, each 
unconscious of the other’s presence. 

MRS. WARING SAID TO HAVE VISITED BLAIR 
IN HIS APARTMENT ON THE NIGHT OF 
NOVEMBER FOURTEENTH! 

“Rusty! My God! My God!” sobbed David, sud¬ 
denly leaning his arms on the table and burying his face 
in his trembling hands. Channing Blair! On the night 
after she had left their home in Sea Cliff! The very 
next night! Blair! Channing Blair! 


216 


SANDRA 


William James Hapgood looked achingly from the 
glaring printed words to David Waring’s bowed head 
and quivering shoulders, the skin of his lean* cheeks 
taut above moving muscles. 

Winslow! Blair! Hapgood closed his eyes. How 
could it be possible! He would have sworn that she 
was innocent of actual— sin, and yet—Winslow! Blair! 
Himself almost! She had outraged conventions— 
had become a spendthrift of restraint. Had she also 
become a moral bankrupt? 

He slid his shaking fingers through the crisp moire of 
his hair, and opening his burning eyes looked pityingly 
at Waring. Whatever his suffering David Waring’s 
was tenfold greater. 

David,” he said softly, “I happen to know her ad¬ 
dress. Don’t ask me how I came to know it, and don’t 
make the mistake of trying to see her. I’ll give it to 
you only on the promise that you will not venture near 
her, but that you will send as your emissary that whole¬ 
some little Stanley woman. If she were to see Sandra 
and talk with her-” 

“Give me her address! I—I must go to her!” David 
Waring had sprung to his feet, his face white, his eyes 
bloodshot. He towered above Hapgood commandingly. 

“I tell you it will do no good—your going. Do you 
understand so little the gallantry—of her? She must 
be made to feel that you are in desperate need of her. 
If you talk with her she will convince you that—that 
you are better off without her. Send Mrs. Stanley.” 

“I insist that you give me her address?” David’s 
fingers doubled menacingly. 



SANDRA 


217 


William James Hapgood looked unhappily up into 
the haggard face. He shook his head. 

“Throttle me if you like, Dave, and I shall give offer 
no resistance. But you cannot force me to further 
jeopardize the chance of Sandra’s return to you.” 

David Waring relaxed—dropped heavily back upon 
his chair. 

“I’ll do whatever you say,” he muttered hoarsely, 
“I don’t understand your manner of reasoning but— 
maybe you are right. God knows I’m pretty apt to 
be wrong myself.” 

Hapgood reached for a pencil, then hesitated, his 
brows coming together thoughtfully. 

“Thanks, David. I’ve not earned this generosity,” 
Winslow! Blair! Himself— almost! Sandra! Sandra! 
Sandra! 

Her slender supple body was in his arms—they were 
Cleopatra and Antony dancing together on the banks 
of the Nile. She was in Winslow’s apartment smiling 
at him mockingly and at once melting to a wistfulness, 
her wet eyes looking into his, her lips red and inviting! 
She was standing in a door in the room of an up-town 
house, gazing tenderly down at an old briar pipe and 
telling him cruelly and with cool nonchalance that the 
thing belonged to the man she loved. Winslow? Blair? 
Which one did she love? And here was David and— 
himself- 

“Aren’t you going to write it down ?” reminded David 
huskily. 

“No,” replied Hapgood with a start. “You can tell 
Mrs. Stanley to call me on the telephone. I shall give 
the address only to her.” 



218 


SANDRA 


David got up once more. He was no longer menac¬ 
ing. He was piteously humble. 

“You’re right, I guess,” he said in a subdued mono¬ 
tone. “You feel that you can’t trust me. And I—I—” 
He drew the back of a hand across his bloodshot eyes, 
and took up his hat in a mechanical, aimless way. “I’ll 
be jogging along,” he faltered miserably. “Tell Eve 
to call you. Tell her the minute I get home. Home! 
S funny, isn’t it— home!”. He laughed hollowly. “So 
long, William James! She used to call you Jimsy— 
remember? Well,” he was at the door, and Hapgood 
was glad he had not thought to extend his hand, “so 
long!” 

Eve Stanley went to see Sandra at an early hour of 
the following morning. She was fluttery and nervous 
and uneasy. She was fearful as to how Sandra would 
receive her and terrified lest she fail in her mission. 

Fastened to one of the bronze letter-boxes in the 
vestibule of the house in the fifties. Eve found a card 
bearing the name Sandra Dawley. She looked at it 
wonderingly. David’s Dr. Hapgood had not mentioned 
a change in Sandra’s name, but certainly this was the 
Sandra whom she sought. There could not be two 
Sandras in the building. Dawley! Probably her 
family name. She was tempted to turn about and run. 
How had she dared to think that she could cope with 
this brilliant Sandra ! Why had she thought she could 
with impunity force herself into this woman’s seclusion! 

. . . But there was poor old David Waring—and there 
was Mate waiting in prayerful excitement at home. 
She would have to go on. She couldn’t disappoint those 
two who believed in her. She pushed the button above 


SANDRA 


219 


the mail box and at once there was a buzzing sound at 
the door. Tremblingly she turned the old-fashioned, 
polished brass knob and entered the tiled hall. 

“Eve!” cried Sandra’s voice from the second floor 
landing. Then came the swishing of feminine gar¬ 
ments, the familiar scent of some tantalizing perfume 
and—Eve’s chilled gloved hands were in the clasp of 
Sandra Waring’s long firm fingers. Certainly Eve 
had not been prepared for such a greeting. Its warmth 
upset her. She began to cry softly. 

Sandra led the way to her rooms, chatting in her old 
half-spirited, half-languid way. She did not ask Eve 
how she had learned her address, she accepted the visit 
with a poise and tact which put Eve—who had expected 
frowning questions and frigid reserve—completely 
at her ease. By the time Eve had allowed her¬ 
self to be divested of her wraps and pushed gently into 
a cushion-padded chair near the radiator, she was filled 
with her usual admiration for this woman who was so 
unlike all other women and yet who was the entire code 
of her sex. 

“How nice of you to come and see me,” murmured 
Sandra caressing one of her white cheeks with Eve’s 
squirrel muff. 

“Then you don’t mind?” Eve looked up anxiously. 

“Mind?” 

“My coming—uninvited.” 

“But why, my dear, would you stand on ceremony?” 
Then to open the subject for her visitor who was plainly 
worried as to how she should enter upon the business 
which Sandra sensed had brought her here: “Surely 


220 


SANDRA 


not because of my separation from—David. You 

wouldn’t let that make you—formal with me?” 

Eve started. 

David!” she cried, and without pausing to wonder 
why if Sandra had not wished her to remain away, she 
had refrained from sending a note with her address, 
she hurried on: “That’s why I came. I wanted to 
talk to you of—of David.” 

“Of course!” Sandra laid the muff on a couch and 
smiled encouragingly, her long lashes screening her 
brooding eyes. “I had expected you would want to do 
that—talk to me of—him.” 

She bent her proud head and examined the lace that 
festooned her gauzy negligee. Her slim fingers traced 
its pattern concentratedly for an instant. 

“Does—David know you came in to—to see me?” 
she inquired casually, looking up finally from the lace 
with which her fingers still toyed. 

“Oh, no. At least, I’m not sure. He dined with us 
last night and immediately after dinner he asked me 
to telephone to Dr. Hapgood. He said Dr. Hapgood 
wanted to speak with me. I telephoned at once and 
was informed as to your whereabouts and told that I 
—I might come and talk with you.” 

“I see. And David-” 

“Later in the evening I tried to talk with David 
about you—he was listening to Mate who was at the 
piano, and he pretended to be engrossed in the music. 

I suppose, hesitatingly and with mute apology, “he 
had seen the evening papers and—and—well, that Blair 
business, you know-” 

“Yes,” murmured Sandra, walking aimlessly about 
the room, “I know. Devil of a mess—that!” She 




SANDRA 


221 


shrugged as though, after all, it mattered little. “You 
say,” she paused near the radiator and looked pensively 
down at Eve, “that Mate—plays for him. Does he— 
does David like—her playing?” 

“The only thing for which he seems really to care. 
He’s brought over to our house several of your old 
sheets of music—favorites of his, I presume—and she 
does them very well.” 

“Mate plays—my—pieces—for—him!” Sandra 
held her hands to the radiator for a second. She felt 
strangely chilled. Then nervously the fingers of one 
hand came back to the cascade of lace. 

“I—I’m glad,” she said evenly. 

“I don’t know what the unhappy man would do 
without her. She talks to him about his yawl—his 
fishing tackle—his-” 

“And is she interested in the building which is to be 
his masterpiece?” inquired Sandra with a disarming 
smile. 

“Naturally!” Eve marveled at her amazing cool¬ 
ness. “She insists that some day she is going to have 
a son who will be an architect and that she’ll take him 
often to see this great building of David’s-” 

There was a tearing sound. Sandra’s slim fingers 
had gone through the web of silk lace. 

Just how she managed to rid herself of Eve she 
could never remember. But finally she was alone star¬ 
ing at a snow-coated window beyond which lay the 
world for which she had freed herself of bondage. 

For two bitter hours she fought a brooding Rusty, 
then she dressed and went out. A visit to three or 
four fashionable shops restored her dominance over 
the irritating Rusty. A treatment at a beauty estab- 




222 


SANDRA 


lishment ironed out the tiny lines that had begun of 
late to gather round her eyes—especially had they 
come to show themselves after some typhoon of emo¬ 
tion had devastated her carefully supervised calm. The 
astringents with which the attendant tightened up the 
signs of encroaching age were soothing emollients to 
her spirit. She entered the beauty shop—Sandra War¬ 
ing thirty-four. She walked out of it—Sandra Dawley 
exquisite creature of the twenties. 

She stood for a moment irresolute. It had stopped 
snowing and the sun having come out from behind the 
clouds was drying the scraped and swept sidewalks. 
An hour ago the hurrying, interlacing pedestrians and 
preoccupied double procession of motor cars would 
have accentuated and intensified her loneliness. Their 
very evident desire to get somewhere—the obvious fact 
that they had destinations, would have impressed upon 
her the dismal thought that she had no place in par¬ 
ticular to go, nothing of interest to do. Now, how¬ 
ever, she was a part of the pattern which these busy 
shuttles were weaving. She was alert with life. The 
fact that she was beautiful and young and that there 
were far corners to be reached before she should find 
herself molting into the dread hideousness of old age 
filled her with a sense of well-being. 

She turned down Fifth Avenue. She would lunch at 
Delmonico’s always there was life and there was 
laughter at Delmonico’s—and later she would go to a 
matinee. After that—well, her evenings had come into 
the habit of taking care of themselves. There would 
be a dinner somewhere with an admirer who never had 


SANDRA 


228 


seen her immediately after Rusty had drawn those tiny 
lines round her eyes. 

It was after the matinee that she met Stephen Wins¬ 
low. She was coming leisurely back up the Avenue, 
having preferred the walk through the goblin-lighted 
dusk to a cross-street-halting taxi, when she saw him 
coming toward her. She was a little glad to see him 
but she felt no slightest thrill at sight of the Machiavel¬ 
lian face which once had wielded so strange an influ¬ 
ence over her. Was it, she wondered, that she had felt 
the charm of him only as long as he was forbidden 
fruit? Had her present freedom of restraints made her 
immune? She didn’t know. The thought, however, 
was amusing. She would come back to it another time. 

She held a narrow gloved hand out to him, her gaze 
meeting his undisturbedly. 

“San 1” Winslow’s dark, sardonic face complimented 
her by losing a degree of its cool self-assurance. “Where 
have you been all these endless weeks!” Determinedly 
he modulated what might have been a cry to a tone of 
casual inquiry. 

“Exploring,” returned Sandra withdrawing her hand 
from his eager clasp. 

“Find the north pole?” He examined her face 
boldly. “You look chilled.” 

“Traveling the opposite direction, Steve. 

“Toward the equator!” 

“Toward the center of things! Toward the heat of 
adventure!” 

Winslow smiled at her approvingly. 

“I wonder,” he said, “how many women have your 
splendid restless energy!” 


224 


SANDRA 


“A lot of them, Steve, only they don’t spend it— 
many of them. They conserve it and it ferments and 
finally sours them.” 

“You understand them pretty thoroughly.” 

“Because I understand myself. Few people know 
themselves. Now, I know perfectly well that I’m being 
all kinds of a fool and that I’m making a mess of things 
generally, but I shall go on exploring because I am 
driven by an urge that is stronger than my power of 
reasoning. I am like the late ruler of Germany. My 
intelligence tells me that in my effort to make the 
world mine I shall probably lose all of it except the 
inevitable six feet.” 

“You’re morbid, San.” 

She nodded a smiling assent. 

“Went to a matinee. Saw one of those things that 
leave a bad taste in the mouth. Unhappy ending. I 
shouldn’t have minded the unhappy ending in itself, had 
there been any happy beginnings or happy middle times 
for the sinning and sinned-against heroine. It was one 
of those goose-fleshed Russian things in which the 
‘wages of sin is death’ for the actors and a blue funk 
for the audience. If all Russians have such dismal out¬ 
looks, than be a Russian I’d rather be a tombstone.” 
Stephen Winslow grimaced. 

“Come with me,” he begged. “We’ll have tea some¬ 
where and watch the dissatisfied, romance-hungry 
dames toddling around in the nerveless arms of sleek¬ 
haired young flattery-slingers.” 

She elevated a shoulder indifferent!} 

“Do you know,” he asked when they were seated at a 
table in a Park Avenue tea room, “that your sky-pilot 
thinks that apartment in Washington Square_” 



SANDRA 


225 


She held up a hand. 

“I know. And after the Blair matter came out in 
the newspapers he is certain—can’t help being certain 
—dear old Jimsy!—that I am what he called me: a 
wanton.” 

“He called you that!” 

She transferred a piece of lemon from a shallow bowl 
to her steaming teacup. 

“He called me that after I had put the word in his 
mind,” she admitted with a gesture that peremptorily 
disposed of the subject. 

Winslow looked at her steadily for an interval of 
silence. No other woman in the room was,, he knew, 
commanding so much attention, and he was inordi¬ 
nately proud of her. Her exclamatory slenderness of 
figure in its swathing of soft gray brocade arrested the 
eye easily. Her strange Mona Lisa smile was curiously 
seductive. Her heavily-fringed green eyes which ap¬ 
peared to see everything and tell nothing, had all the 
weird beauty of the sea. And as always, there was 
about her an aura of magnetism that, combined with 
her dazzling though languorous charm of manner, 
made her irresistible. 

“Why don’t you let me come along with you, San?” 
he began suddenly. “I, too, should like to analyze life. 
We’d fit so perfectly into each other’s moods. You 
were made for me. Haven’t you come yet to recognize 
the affinity?” 

She returned his steady gaze half-laughingly, half- 
seriously, her smartly-hatted head tipped back, her eyes 
glowing like many-faceted jewels beneath their dark 
filigree of bronze lashes. 

“The affinity you feel,” she replied, in her cool world- 


226 


SANDRA 


wise voice, “is merely sex attraction, Steve. And nature 
didn’t make her males and females equally sensitive to 
the call.” 

How deftly she disposed of him! 

He warmed with a fever of admiration for this woman 
who could so cleverly dissect him and so easily deny 
him. 

After a long music-filled pause he informed her that 
he had seen David slushing along to the Sea Cliff Sta¬ 
tion in the morning’s snow storm. 

He noted that Sandra’s languorous eyes were in¬ 
stantly alert and that her lips parted breathlessly. 

“Did he,” she asked leaning toward him across the 

little table, “have on his ulster? Was he wearing his_ 

But no, you wouldn’t have noticed if he were wearing 
his rubbers.” 

Ulster! Rubbers! And from Sandra-the-Romanti- 
cist! 


“Haven’t much interest in such prosaics,” he laughed, 
trying not to be too conscious of the depression with 
which her frank anxiety had enshrouded him. “Didn’t 
know that you had.” 

“Oh!” She relaxed to indifference. “David has a 
habit of catching violent colds. But—” she arched 
her brows by way of innuendo—“there’s Mate Stanley 
to mother him if he catches one to-day. Mate will be 
sixteen next week and sixteen is—is such a mother age. 
Its that empty period between dolls and sweethearts 

when the average girl will mother-” 

“Another woman’s husband!” 

“Even so. Especially will she do it if-” 

“If the other woman has craftily trained her for it!” 


SANDRA 


227 


“Steve! Don’t be hateful.” 

“Pardon! After all, there is no real fathoming you, 
San. Your selfishness is all mixed up with an incon¬ 
sistent chivalry. Your victims are issued a policy of 
insurance by Rusty, as David used to call that better 
part of you.” 

“You, Steve,” she shook her lovely head at him warn- 
ingly, “never knew David’s Rusty. Therefore, Stephen 
dear, you are not insured!” 

“Then you’re going to let that Mate Stanley-” 

“Listen to the music, Steve! They’ve a wonderful 
orchestra here,” she interrupted, swaying her cigarette 
to the rhythm of the music. 

“I want to dance!” she cried, abruptly rising to her 
feet and upsetting a glass of water in her haste. “Hold 
me tight in your arms and—for five little minutes make 
love to me!” 

And Stephen Winslow the satyr—the sardonically 
smiling cynic whose grace David had once mentally 
described as Mephistophelian—looked with new under¬ 
standing at the woman who denied him—who was not 
yet ready to cancel her debt to him. As he drew her 
into his arms he came all at once to know that he would 
be glad enough now to have her on her own terms. 
Whether or not she could respond to him whether 
her eyes would be frozen pools or flames of lust he 
wanted her. Wanted her as never before had he wanted 
any woman. And yet—no longer could he endure the 
conscious thought of having her only as payment for 
David Waring’s theater. 


CHAPTER XVI 


O N a day less than one week before Christmas 
Sandra found herself, much to her chagrin, in 
a jewelry shop buying a gold cigarette case 
for David. She smiled crookedly and called herself a 
fool, and when she was asked for engraving instruc¬ 
tions, she lifted her head triumphantly and gave Stephen 
Winslow’s initials with the demand that they be fash¬ 
ioned into a monogram. She would show Rusty that 
she—Sandra—could not be controlled by sentimental¬ 
ity. Nevertheless she spent a miserable Christmas Day. 
Declining all invitations, denying herself to all callers, 
she spent the day alone in her room, alternately rem¬ 
iniscing above an old briar pipe and wringing from 
her rented piano mad cries or soft, tremulous sobs. 
But in the evening, her alter ego subdued, she joined 
a party at the Hotel Brevoort, and at once became a 
fount of brilliance. 

She awoke on New Year’s morning to the knowledge 
that life was getting away from her. If she were to 
empty it of its worth-while treasures, do all things, see 
all things and feel all things, she had no time to lose 
The faintly visible lines at the corners of her eyes were 
beginning to withstand obstinately her efforts to eradi¬ 
cate them. With her usual manner of word-juggling 
she called them her etchings by that beauty-spoiling 
228 


SANDRA 


229 


caricaturist Time. But she did not smile at the whim¬ 
sicality. She could have jeered with narcotic derision 
a physical pain and laughed amusedly at the travesty 
she made of it. The scars of years were another matter. 
Pain she would endure or anaesthetize. Deformities 
were the only tragedies she feared, and to her any blem¬ 
ish—any physical imperfection—was a deformity. For 
more than a year she had worn nightly a patented 
chin strap. This had preserved the delicate contour 
of her chin and the satin-smoothness of her slim throat. 
It had been worth to her many times its weight in gold. 

She lifted herself from her pillow to an elbow, on 
this New Year’s morning, and removing the strap, 
looked at it as at a loyal, patiently serving friend, 
remembering how David had laughed when he had dis¬ 
covered her wearing it. He had come immediately, 
however, to understand and condone it, though, as he 
pointed out to her, it was a useless bother since he 
would love her always even if her chin came to sag in 
the most frightful fashion and her neck to look like 
the neck of a mummy. 

Well, she had come away from David. She had been 
obsessed with the idea that adventure would keep her 
young, and she had freed herself that she might in¬ 
dulge in rejuvenation. What now! She was free to 
do as she pleased—what was it that she pleased to do P 
She did not know. She wanted to live-—to drink of 
life—to plumb its depths—but where should she begin 
her plumbing—and how? 

Was Greenwich Village the solution to her problem? 
Because its life was altogether unlike the life of Sea 
Cliff should she accept it as adventure and romance 


230 


SANDRA 


sufficient—analysis final ? What had satisfied her 
down there in that motley crowd of pseudo artists, 
real painters, artificial, self-laurel-wreathed poets and 
brilliant genuine journalists? Nothing. Temporarily 
she had been stimulated, but reaction had revived in 
her that old restlessness—that disturbing feeling that 
life was withholding something from her. The end of 
the pier—oblivion, always just ahead of her—made her 
anxious to live fast and furiously—to devour experi¬ 
ences—to consume all romance—to retard old age. 
Life was too miserably short! She could not bear the 
thought that she might leave it without having solved 
its purpose and wrung it dry of excitement. She 
would have to hurry—she was starting late. 

How women of the plains—women of the Main Streets 
endured their walled-in lives of uneventfulness and pas¬ 
sive aging, she could not conceive. Undoubtedly they 
were like the woman in Eugene O’Neil’s “Beyond The* 
Horizon,” they lacked imagination. And yet—daily on 
the streets of New York she saw women whose eyes told 
of their hunger for adventure. Some of them, she knew, 
were sipping at it clandestinely, others lacking the 
courage to seek it or even to partake of it when oppor¬ 
tunity threw it at them, became bitter and allowed this 
bitterness to vent itself against the innocent members 
of their household. Their men philandered. Occasion¬ 
ally one of these women found out her husband’s guilt 
and, equally guilty in her own conscience, upbraided 
him, for his inconstancy—perhaps even sued him for 
his faithlessness to her and to humdrum (though this 
latter term is never mentioned in the legal documents), 
and the great courts of justice and the world at large 


SANDRA 


231 


sympathized with her. She is an outraged wife. In¬ 
deed! Oh, in deed! It is only the deed that convicts. 

She had found certain interest in bringing to a dec¬ 
laration of love several of her admirers, but once the 
declaration was made her interest waned. It was a 
game won and therefore over—ended. Thus these men 
lost flavor. 

In reviewing one of these affairs, she sat up in bed 
suddenly, her eyes alight, her lips parted. What was it 
this artist had said about the popularity in Europe of 
the matured woman? Oh, yes! That was it—over 
there the thirties comprised woman’s dangerous age. 
The continental believed that woman like wine improved 
with maturity. Europe! Paris! St. Moritz! Venice! 
Monte Carlo! Why, of course! Were not these the 
very places of which she had dreamed! 

She flung herself out of bed and sliding her slender 
bare feet into a pair of pink satin mules began to walk 
up and down her bedroom. Finally she paused at her 
dressing table and looking into the glass smiled at the 
reflected youthfulness of her face. The fire of antici¬ 
pation had warmed and brightened her. She laughed 
excitedly. Paris ! Venice! Monte Carlo! What were 
they going to offer her! They were far corners—and 
she had but to take a steamer to reach them! She sat 
for a while dreaming. 

This dressing table was her shrine, its jars and bottles 
her idols. It was here she came with her victories and 
her anxieties. It was here she came to perform her 
most sacred rites. Now, as she looked into the glass 
she was a young novitiate eager to enter into the glam¬ 
our of strange romantic cities. 


232 


SANDRA 


“But,” argued Stephen Winslow, who came that eve¬ 
ning to take her to dinner, “what will you find over 
there that you cannot find here?” 

“New corners, Steve, and new Stephens, and may¬ 
be—” her glowing, translucent eyes darkened to a 
baffling opacity—“a new Sandra,” she announced gayly. 

“And you won’t let me come along?” 

“To spoil my conquests? Oh, Steve! Steve! How 
can you ask?” 

“Have I forced myself upon you since that day we 
met on the Avenue? Haven’t I been patient—accepting 
gratefully the crumbs of your time which you have 
doled out to me so penuriously ?” 

She nodded her appreciation. 

“Oh, yes!” She admitted approvingly. Then her 
lips moved to a gesture of amusement. “You’ve been a 
quite different Steve these last two weeks from the 
Steve who told me one night in Gania’s apartment that 
crumbs would not appease him.” 

She had opened the door—their taxi was waiting. 
But Stephen Winslow put out his hand and drew her 
back into the room. 

“I didn’t know then—wasn’t sure what it was that 
I felt for you,” he explained unsteadily, his dark satur¬ 
nine eyes seeking to hold her gaze. “I understand now, 
San. It’s love!” 

“Love?” murmured Sandra quizzically. “Why, Steve 
dear, it was you who told me that love was the vacuous 
condition of adolescence—the ridiculous hysteria of 
knobby-j ointed youth!” 

At the man’s evident shame and unha,ppiness, she 


SANDRA 233 

laid a hand solicitously on his arm and smiled up at 
him tenderly. 

“Stay here and wait for me, Steve. Perhaps some¬ 
day I shall come back, ready to rest and—unafraid 
to die. If I bring back such a ghost of me, shall you 
still want me, Steve ?” 

“I—I don’t know, San. I love you as you are now,” 
he replied with unembellished honesty. 

“Thanks for your candor. It proves to me that 
when my chin has begun to sag and romance refuses 
longer to be my astringent, there is but one man who 
would still love me could he dare. But when that time 
comes he will be the husband of another woman, perhaps 
the father of a some-day great architect.” She turned 
once more to the door. “I’ll be coming back, Steve, 
and I’ll look you up and offer the remnants to you, but 
you will not want me. I can see now, how you will look 
at me—how you will loathe me. Meantime, Steve— 
meantime I’ll be surfeiting myself to a point where— 
I shall not care.” 

Four days later Stephen Winslow saw her aboard 
her steamer, stood on deck with her a tense half hour 
that was punctuated only by vague monosyllables, and 
finally at a raucous, warning whistle, clasped her hand 
abstractedly and with a grandiloquent, decorative sal¬ 
ute, moved with well simulated sangfroid toward the 
gangplank. 

“Steve!” 

Sandra caught up with him just as he was stepping 
off the ship. 

“You can kiss me goodbye, Steve,” she cried, an odd 
premonition weighing heavily upon her. 


234 


SANDRA 


He turned and looked at her silently for an instant. 
She snatched off her soft velour steamer hat and lifted 
her face to him beseechingly. 

“I—I want you, too, Steve,” she insisted gently. 

Without a Word he put his arms around her and 
bending his own bared head touched his lips to hers. 

He would have released her then but she was clinging 
to him. 

“Steve, dear,” she whispered, looking imploringly 
into his eyes, “will you—will you do what—whatever 
you can for—for David? He’s not like you and—me, 
Steve. He’s just a little boy grown big. Will you, 
Steve?” 

Stephen Winslow laughed cynically. 

“With pleasure,” he drawled sarcastically. “You 
ask so little. Only that I look after the—the man you 
yourself have abandoned. 

Her eyes moistened. He could see the muscles work¬ 
ing in her throat where her fur gapped open. He tried 
to steady his mocking smile but in spite of him, it soft¬ 
ened to contrition. 

“I understand, San. If I were the one going off 
on this steamer and I happened to be leaving behind 
a wife for whom I had—tenderness, I should probably 
be asking you to—to look after her, and I know you 
would do it. You’d be gallant enough for that. It’s 
because we’re so much alike, San, that—that I can— 
can understand.” 

She watched him through fogged eyes as he swung 
gracefully down the gangplank and when he had reached 
the dock and turned, she smiled and imitated perfectly 
his mocking, devil-may-care salute. 


SANDRA 235 

“Only the Sphinx and Stephen and I!” she murmured, 
brushing an impatient hand across her eyes. 

Aboard ship she attracted much flattering attention. 
She had about her that distinctive air which stamped 
her as being not of the ordinary. Passengers of both 
sexes sought to know her and knowing her found her 
tremendously fascinating. She was adamantly reti¬ 
cent when an endeavor was made to probe into her 
history and this made her all the more intriguing. In 
the imagination of many of those thus intrigued she 
was fancied to be the mistress of some mismated Amer¬ 
ican millionaire or the wife of some rich brute, run 
away to join on the other side the Atlantic a waiting 
paramour, and than an illicit affaire du coeur , there is 
to the average continental mind—and most of the in¬ 
trigued were continentals—few things more interesting. 

One of the men who paid her constant court might 
have been the prototype of Stephen Winslow. He was 
a Frenchman—lazily cynical, urbanely despotic, jest¬ 
ingly serious, languidly impassioned, precise in his 
grooming and apparently possessed of unlimited means. 
Sandra found him immensely diverting. What he found 
in Sandra he told her on a moonlit deck the last night 
out. 

She was faintly thrilled and a little chilled at the 
things he said and the way he said them. It seemed 
he was something of a personage in Paris and Monte 
Carlo. He could give her all that most women de¬ 
sired plus a rather ravaged and moth-eaten heart. He 
did not mention marriage. He did, however, have the 
grace to talk perfectly—almost too perfectly—of love. 
He painted with easy word-strokes w T hat Paris could 


236 


SANDRA 


give to a woman of her type were she properly pre¬ 
sented. He delved uncannily into her secret wants and 
informed her casually that they were within her reach. 

She listened to his slightly accented words wonder¬ 
ing a little that adventure had come so soon and re¬ 
gretted its guise and its sordid demands. She asked 
for an hour in which to think. He gave her two. At 
midnight he came for his answer. 

She was far up in the bow, an arm resting on the 
rail, her steamer coat flapping in the breeze, her eyes 
staring ahead as if at the dim unknown into which the 
ship was carrying her. 

“Ah, Monsieur Molyneux,” she half turned at his 
approach and put out her hand, “you did it too badly. 
You bungled it!” 

“Bungled it? Bungled?” The man repeated the 
word uncomprehendingly, as he bent his head and lifted 
her hand to his lips. 

Sandra withdrew her hand and allowed her gaze to 
drift back to the dim distance beyond the bow. 

“You didn’t ask me—” she hesitated the fraction 
of a second—“to be your wife,” she ended evenly. 

“But, madame, I thought-” 

“That I might—accept. Well, Monsieur Moly¬ 
neux,” she turned her head a little and smiled mock¬ 
ingly up at him, “you needn’t have been afraid. I 
couldn’t marry you. And I—I wouldn’t marry you.” 

“Is it, madame, that you-” 

“It is,” interrupted Sandra almost fiercely, “that I 
cannot permit romance to be robbed of any of its 
ecstasies.” 

“Then Madame Dawley wishes me to ask her to marry 




SANDRA 


237 


me that she might have the exquisite pleasure of refus¬ 
ing me! Is it not so?” 

“No,” replied Sandra a little wearily. “No, it is not 
so. Had you asked me to—marry you, I should have 
been willing to become your—your—” She broke off 
with a swift, disdainful movement of one hand. 

“Ah!” breathed the man eagerly, hopefully. “Then 
you—y OU will perhaps further consider-” 

Sandra turned slowly round and faced him, her chin 
lifted, an enigmatic smile curving her red lips, her eyes 
half screened by their long lashes. 

“You do not understand, my friend,” she said, and 
her smooth flexible tone was at one with the singing 
breeze and the swish of the sea. “For that I cannot 
blame you,” she went on tolerantly. “Men go through 
the centuries believing that they understand woman. 
And woman, too clever to let them know that they have 
missed the secret chambers of her heart, goes on 
through the ages but half-explored, half-charted.” She 
shook her head and shrugged disparagingly. “Even 
you, Monsieur Molyneux, though you are that master 
l over — a Frenchman—cannot see why a woman will 
accept what she knows to be counterfeit providing it 
has a pleasant clink and is nicely milled.’ 

“Je comprend!” Molyneux’s face cleared of its puz¬ 
zlement. “Because I have one other wife who will 
not be, as you say in America, one good sport and give 
me a divorce, I cannot marry you, and because I can¬ 
not marry you, you think there is in my heart for 
you not big enough love. Yes?” 

Sandra’s eyes had narrowed, her faint smile had dis¬ 
appeared. 



238 SANDRA 

“You have a—wife!” she murmured, staring at him 
in amazement. 

“But of course!” cried the Frenchman “Why else 
should I not ask Madame to marry me, when all my 
soul it is hungry for her!” 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” asked Sandra thought- 
fully. 

“It is the subject so awkward.” 

“And yet, it might have won for you a—different 
answer.” 

“Madame is right. The heart of woman—it is not 
to be understood!” 

“Woman scarcely understands it herself,” admitted 
Sandra, lifting her delicately penciled brows and tilting 
her head to an attitude of insouciance. 

“Had you explained and deplored your inability to 
make me your wife, I should have explained and de¬ 
plored my inability to accept you as a husband, and 
at this moment we should be building our chateaux en 
Espagne .” 

The man straightened his graceful figure and sighed 
audibly. 

“Madame Dawley makes herself more than ever de¬ 
sirable,” he said softly, taking her hand and again lift¬ 
ing it to his lips. “I shall live only on hope that one 
day soon Madame will change her so curious mind. She 
has my Paris address. I shall await her summons.” 
He bowed low before her. 

“What insufferable self-assurance!” jeered Sandra 
when after persuading him to leave her, she stood once 
more alone on the forward deck. “What iron-clad 
conceit! And yet,” she leaned against the railing and 


SANDRA 


239 


looked up at the star-dotted roof of the night a faint 
smile playing around her mobile mouth, “he has that 
old world manner of which I used to dream, and he is 
the magician who can open the door to Adventure. 
Poor Madame Bovary! How she would have adored 
him! What would he not have stood for in her eager 
eyes. And yesterday—” she laughed mirthlessly—“I 
was Madame Bovary.” 

She sobered to a thoughtful gravity. The sky had 
caught her attention. For a long interval she gazed 
up at it, forgetting herself. 

The stars ! The twinkling eyes of the night! What 
was the answer to their mystery? Did those planets 
up there hold animal life? If so, what sort of crea¬ 
tures peopled them? Would communication between 
them and the people of this earth ever be established? 
Would the time come when one could fasten himself 
into a contraption and be shot up to Mars? . . . How 
splendid that would be! H. G. Wells had imagined and 
portrayed for his readers the state of perfection at¬ 
tained by the inhabitants of a strange world. A trip 
to Mars! Ah, there would be adventure! Even Jimsy’s 
Heaven lost its appeal by comparison. 

Jimsy’s heaven! One could know something about 
Mars—it was visible to the eye, but Jimsy’s heaven was 
a fancy that had been accepted as a fact. How did 
one dare to look up there at those stars and say: “I 
know how they were created and why. Nothing is 
secret to me. This stupendous Scheme is actually quite 
simple. Man has figured it out—solved it.” 

She would like to believe in God—but whose God— 
which of all the Gods conceived by man—could she ac- 


240 


SANDRA 


cept. The Christian God had changed from genera¬ 
tion to generation with the changing needs and ideas 
of His followers. Starting with Jehovah, a God of 
Wrath, successive generations had given Him new at¬ 
tributes, according as these attributes comforted them 
or satisfied new needs or doubts. Why had it been nec¬ 
essary for man to paint a picture of God in the limited 
earthy colors of his poor paint box? And why now, 
that the picture was painted should she strain her in¬ 
tellect and credence to the point of worshiping it?” 

She shivered and drew her cloak closer around her 
tingling figure. 

Those stars—how they interested her! How she 
loved them! But where was the use trying to under¬ 
stand their purpose or the manner in which they were 
created? She would not deny the possibility of the 
existence of an Infinite Power behind the universe. In¬ 
deed, she vaguely believed in such an existence. But 
what of it? Did it not so transcend human thought 
or imagination as to make it seem a totally useless 
waste of time trying to define or grasp it? 

“Poor old Jimsy!” she whispered against the breeze 
that blew wisps of hair into her salt-stung eyes. “I’m 
afraid my soul will remain papier mache, my conscience 
remain asbestos! I’m through bleaching my red cor¬ 
puscles brooding in the dismal gray of montony. I’m 
on my way to Paris, Jimsy, where life is bright as a 
noonday sun and restless as the storm-blown sands of 
a desert. I shall be vivid! I shall live no two days in 
the same way. There shall be no monotony—no 
schedule—no bondage! 

“Paris! St. Moritz! Monte Carlo! Venice! Capri! 


SANDRA 


241 


I shall come to know them all. I shall stay young, 
Jimsy, for a very long time. Men shall love me and I 
shall look deep into their bared hearts. And when 
they begin to bore me I shall go farther into the world. 
China! Japan! Egypt! The stone wall of China 
will tell me tales easier to believe than those of your 
creed. The pyramids of Egypt will thrill me as no 
promise of salvation can thrill me. The Sphinx will 
share her secrets with me! But first, Jimsy, there is 
to be the warming brilliance of Paris !” 

But Paris, when she arrived and settled herself there, 
was not of a warming brilliance. It was enshrouded in 
fog and a penetrating dampness. The chilling damp¬ 
ness would have been enough in itself to disappoint and 
depress Sandra but when she had to suffer it together 
with a fog that separated her from the world—from 
all brightness—all life—it was as though some dread¬ 
ful cataclysm had wiped from the earth’s surface all 
other human beings, leaving only her to wander aim¬ 
lessly through gray space which was haunted by 
vaguely shaped wraiths that made weird muffled sounds 
in a strange tongue. For three days whenever she ven¬ 
tured outside her hotel, her horizon was scarcely ten 
feet distant from her resentful eyes. The first two 
days she did not go farther from her hotel than the 
little park-square a stone’s throw away. It was here 
in this park that passersby were too deep in the fog 
to have shape. They slid hazily past her at a dis¬ 
tance, like ghosts of suffocated humans. But on the 
third day she made her way to the shops and in the 
evening to a theater. She returned to her rooms m 
better spirits. She even laughed a little at a home- 


242 


SANDRA 


sick Rusty, sang a bar or two of a flippant song, and 
made an over-elaborate toilette for the night. But 
inasmuch as the following day brought with it no prom¬ 
ise of sunshine, she again became easy prey to Rusty’s 
beseechings. 

It was one thing to be lonely in New York where 
she had only to look from her windows to see familiar 
buildings, step upon the street to hear familiar words. 
But when one was alone in a strange land that was 
wrapped in the gloom of fog, and could see from his 
windows only unfriendly-looking, phantom-like build¬ 
ings, and hear when he stepped on the street, a lan¬ 
guage which though he had learned it, was still chil¬ 
lingly foreign, one had no single dear intimacy with 
which one could consort. 

For two drab weeks Sandra held out against Rusty’s 
importunities, then one night when she no longer had 
left even the remnant of a scornful laugh, and victory 
for her alter ego was imminent, she wrote a note and 
dispatched it by special messenger to Francis Moly- 
neux. She walked up and down her narrow sitting 
room like a caged leopardess, until his answer was de¬ 
livered to her, then she flung herself into a chair and 
laughed liltingly, flutily, her eyes glowing, her pale 
cheeks flushed. 

“You can’t beat me down, Rusty! You can’t take 
me home! I haven’t any home. The world is my ad¬ 
dress. My dear old Wells has said that Individuality 
is only a name, an address and a memory. Well, I’ve 
no individuality—since I have repudiated the name mar¬ 
riage gave me, have no address and no memory. It was 
at your own request that I gave up David’s name—” 


SANDRA 


243 


she shrugged her shoulders-—“and I admit that you 
were wise since I should certainly have disgraced it, but 
it is my own wish—it is my command , Rusty, that when 
we leave this room to-morrow, we carry away with us 
no memories that can cloud our glass of wine. 

“Memories! They are thoughts of things that have 
never been. Stephen is right. Only the present is 
real!” 

She stood up suddenly and looked thoughtfully 
around the room, then on an impulse she got herself 
into her steamer coat and a soft little brown hat and 
went out. 

On a bridge of the Seine she stood for a long mo¬ 
ment silhouetted against the yellow glare of a city 
lamp, then removing her gloves, she drew from her 
finger the ring which David had placed there one solemn 
long-ago day, held it for a moment to her lips and 
with her breath catching stranglingly in her throat, 
threw it into the swishing blackness below. 


CHAPTER XVII 


4 ‘"IT AM bored,” sighed Sandra one bright winter’s 

1 day at St. Moritz. She looked without interest 
at the skaters in their gay knickered costumes, 
as they went gliding past the bench on which she was 
sitting with Francois Molyneux. “Too, I don’t like 
the cold. It—it freezes me.” A perceptible shiver ran 
over her smartly-clad body. 

Her companion bent over and tucked closer about 
her the rug which covered her knees, but immediately 
he had done it, she flung the rug from her into the 
snow at their feet. 

“Can’t you take me somewhere? The Riviera? 
Cannes? This everlasting snow,” she shuddered, “is 
too monotonously white! I want the soot of cities!” 

Molyneux smiled. What a curious creature she was! 
With what ease had she captured and held the atten¬ 
tion of this blase place of fashion! And now that its 
population—the male half, at least—was willing to 
bend its knee to her, she began to grow restless—to 
yearn for new worlds to conquer. 

“That American writer,” he said, noting appreci¬ 
atively the languorous grace of her, “who wrote that 
so strange book ‘Cytheria,’ he gave us a man very like 
my most exquisite Sandra. Restless, always searching 
for the answer to an obsession. My Sandra shall find 
the great excitement above the green baize. Ah!” he 
drew in his breath in a little whistling sound, and with 
244 


SANDRA 


245 


the tapering fingers of one white hand he plucked 
amusedly at his close-cropped mustache and at the small 
patch of black hair on his chin, “but my Sandra will 
intoxicate even the croupier, with her insolently sug¬ 
gestive green eyes, her so flaming hair, and so white 
skin. Yes!” Again he drew in his breath with that 
whistling sound, and his dark eyes traveled leisurely 
over the smart knickered costume of dark blue leather 
and glistening black fox fur, which so perfectly predi¬ 
cated the beauty and grace of the lithe figure reclining 
half-listlessly beside him. “We shall have open house 
at Monte Carlo, my sorceress and I!” 

She turned a brooding gaze upon him. 

“I have asked you,” she commented, marked annoy¬ 
ance in her tone, “to refrain from the use of possessive 
first person pronouns. I do not belong to you, Fran¬ 
cois Molyneux, either as your Sandra or your sorcer¬ 
ess , as you seem to delight in calling me.” 

She looked off k moodily to a swiftly gliding couple, 
a brown-eyed sprite of a girl and a tall loose-jointed 
man. Last night she had danced with that man and he 
had—had stepped on her feet and been so miserable 
in his self-consciousness—in his knowledge of his awk¬ 
wardness! Out here on the ice he was one with the 
elements, his eager face flushed, his eyes glowing. How 
like David he was—that man with the brown-eyed 
young girl! And she was Mate learning to do the 
things he liked. . . . David ! How far away he seemed! 
Millions of miles! Ions of years! 

She put a hand inside her furs and tried to still the 
throbbing of her throat. 

At her movement Molyneux spoke. 


246 


SANDRA 


“It is one of Madame’s charms that she gives herself 
not wholly. It is —je ne sais quoi , unless it be that she 
belongs a part to somebody from whom she have no 
wish to be too entirely free. I do not know,” he con¬ 
tinued, examining her narrowly. “Perhaps for some¬ 
body there is regret—yes? Perhaps la tendresse is 
sorrowing.” 

Sandra surveyed him coolly, her chin lifted to an 
arrogance, her eyes mocking. 

“Whatever I have of regret or tenderness,” she re¬ 
marked obliquely, “is mine and mine only. It happens, 
however,” she temporized, “that you have once again 
missed reading me. It is because I so determinedly re¬ 
fuse to belong to anybody that I object to your using 
possessive terms in connection with me. It is be¬ 
cause-” 

Ah, here coming toward her was the tall loose-jointed 
man and the brown-eyed girl! He had tossed away his 
knitted stocking cap, and his shock of hair whipped 
with the wind. She could imagine him at the tiller of 
a yawl, his eyes on a filling sail, his voice calling out 
to her, and his- 

“Francis!” She was on her feet, and Molyneux 
noticed that she was trembling. “Take me away! I— 
Pm ill*” 

“Oh, please! I am so sorry, cherie /” He beckoned 
to an attendant to look after the rugs, and taking 
Sandra’s arm led her gently away from the crowd. At 
the outskirts of it, Sandra turned and looked at him 
steadily. She fancied that he must hear the things 
Rusty was saying to her. But his smile reassured her, 
and she surprised him with a burst of tinkling laughter. 




SANDRA 247 

“What a jumping-jack I make of you, poor Fran¬ 
cis !” 

“Ah, you are better!” he exclaimed relievedly. 

“Do you not hate my black moods, mon ami?” 

“It is your many moods that give you so sharp a 
flavor, cherie. The black mood it has tang, it is spice.” 

“For that,” she laughed with a little grimace, “I 
shall allow you to buy that ermine cloak upon which 
yesterday I frowned.” 

“That is one splendid decision! Peu de chose , mats 
at Monte Carlo it will be worth much to Madame and—• 
to me.” He said the last word in an undertone, and 
though very possibly it had escaped his companion’s 
attention, he mentally cursed himself for the foolish im¬ 
pulse which had led him into saying that which might 
betray him. 

Rut Sandra had not been listening. She was remem¬ 
bering a night in the Ritz of New York, when a man 
had leaned his handsome, sardonic face close to hers 
and whispered: 

“Sandra! You are not of New York. You are of 
the long ago Carthage. You were the dancing faun 
at the feast of Solammbo. You have the sharp, intoxi¬ 
cating tang of Zanzibar. Eve is sweet lavender. You, 
Sandra, are clove and cinnamon.” 

And on her other side a man with nice brown eyes 
and crisp moire hair had caught up the satyr’s words. 
“I too,” he said, “think of her as clove and cinnamon.” 

Did spices, she wondered, ever go stale. Was their 
pungence everlasting, or did old age vitiate it? Old 
age! How one had to fight it! How horrible to think 


248 


SANDRA 


that at birth one had already begun to die. That every 
breath one drew helped to wear one out! 

“Francis!” She had begun to walk rapidly, but 
she stopped now abruptly. “Francis !” She looked 
at him in a frightened, startled way. “I—I’m not get¬ 
ting enough life! I want life ! Life , Francis ! I want 
to get aboard a carousal that will whirl me to a dizzi¬ 
ness !” 

“Monte Carlo,” he reassured her, caressing the hand 
that touched his arm. 

And Francois Molyneux was not far wrong. Monte 
Carlo was, indeed, a gay gilded carousal, and it whirled 
Sandra to a temporary dizziness. 

Between St. Moritz and Monte Carlo there had been 
two shopping days in Paris, and during this period 
Sandra was so vivid and sparkling, that Molyneux 
rubbed his hands together in a self-congratulatory man¬ 
ner, and it was with difficulty that he restrained him¬ 
self from exhibiting a too great display of his excite¬ 
ment. 

They lunched in the quaint courtyard of the Chateau 
De Madrid , dined early and went to a theater, after 
which they danced for several hours at Le Jardin de 
Ma Soeur. And again and again Monsieur Molyneux 
assured himself that Fortune had smiled upon him. 

Sandra fitted into Monte Carlo as though she were 
one of its natural elements. At first the old habitues 
looked at her with speculation and wonder, but though 
they continued to speculate about her, they came very 
shortly to accept her as one of themselves, completely 
forgetting her newness. She was not overeager at the 
gaming tables, nor was she particularly expectant, yet 


SANDRA 


249 


she brought to the Casino a flaming restlessness that 
had an intoxicating effect on the effete gamesters. Her 
restlessness made itself felt in many curious ways: the 
flickering of her heavily fringed white lids, the smold¬ 
ering light in her half-amorous, half-scornful green eyes, 
the swift mirthless smile that so frequently lifted the 
corners of her boldly rouged lips and her now and then 
strangely eloquent breathlessness. 

Her arresting beauty of body, her distinctive cos¬ 
tumes, the gorgeous sunset-tones of her riotous hair, 
and the proud carriage that set her uncountable de¬ 
grees above the bourgeoisie and awed to deference the 
canaille, made her a figure of interest. Wherever she 
went she was the cynosure of all eyes. She had but to 
stroll down the steps of the Hotel de Paris to command 
the attention of the throngs, blase though they were. 

It was on the second night after her arrival that she 
created something of a sensation in the place whose 
calm has remained undisturbed through many trage¬ 
dies. Escorted by Molyneux she had just entered one 
of the long well-crowded rooms of the Casino, and had 
been protectively piloted to a position near a table, 
when a player on the opposite side of the table lifted 
his brooding eyes to her face. She happened to be 
looking his way and the hopelessness in his face filled 
her with a feeling of contempt. That man who could 
not lose gamely had no right to gamble. When three- 
fourths of the game was defeat, why should anyone 
be surprised when he lost? It had not been the way 
of her debonair father. It would not be her way. 

The croupier muttered thickly, the wheel spun noise¬ 
lessly—and again the man on the opposite side of the 


250 


SANDRA 


table lifted bis tragic eyes to her face. Something in 
her looks seemed to fascinate him. He gazed at her 
somberly. Conscious of his stare Sandra’s mouth bent 
to a cynical, unsympathetic smile, and her carefully 
penciled brows lifted quizzically. 

Her tolerant contempt appeared to challenge the 
man. He stared at her beautiful face for another in¬ 
stant and then, as if goaded beyond his endurance, he 
rose to his feet and leaning across the table announced 
hoarsely: 

“If the lovely lady who smiles at my losses will come 
and stand here behind me and—and frown,” he laughed 
tunelessly, “my luck will change.” 

Sandra knew by his accent that he was an American 
and that he had been drinking, and she knew, too, that 
almost everyone in the room was observing her, but 
having made up her mind on the instant, nothing could 
deter her. She turned to her companion, her eyes glow¬ 
ing, her lips parted. 

“Take me round there, Francis!” she commanded 
breathlessly, laying her hand on his arm. 

“But, Sandra—” he began protestingly. 

“If you will not take me, I shall go alone,” she in¬ 
terrupted impatiently. She looked across the table to 
the man who was still standing, and whose despairing 
eyes were still gazing fascinatedly at her. 

“For America,” she cried, and giving him a luminous 
smile, inclined her head graciously. She was no longer 
scornful. 

The man bowed low, a buzz of conversation began to 
fill the air, the croupier snarled raucously. 

“Ah! When Madame will she will!” sighed Francis 


SANDRA 


251 


Molyneux, making a wedge of himself for Sandra. But 
as they rounded the table a strange smile hovered 
under the edges of his small dark mustache, and once 
more he was congratulating himself. 

And so it was that seated on a high chair behind her 
fellow countryman, Sandra became the central figure 
in the room. The man in front of her sank back upon 
his stool and placed his chips. The wheel spun round 
jestingly—the three or four deep crowd surrounding 
the table, held its collective breath, and craned its col¬ 
lective neck. Men in dinner jackets and women in low- 
cut gowns thrilled to the exciting moment which had 
been given to them by two audacious Americans. The 
wheel slowed—the marble slid from the! rim. The 
American had won! 

He gathered in his stack of chips and without both¬ 
ering to count them, he rose once more to his feet and 
turning, extended his hand to Sandra, who laid one 
of her own hands in it smilingly. 

“You are not playing?” he asked, after a few hurried 
words of thanks. 

Sandra shook her head. 

“It shall be enough for me to watch you.” 

“And your watching will bring me luck. Half my 
winnings shall be a stake for you.” 

“Madame does not allow strangers to stake her,” put 
in Molyneux coldly and, watching Sandra’s face from 
the corner of his eye, he added: “Nor will I permit 
you to again make such an offer.” 

. Ah! He had not misjudged her! That hint of pos¬ 
session had rallied all her powers of resistance. She 


252 


SANDRA 


was smiling her acceptance, her hand once again in 
the flaccid palm of the player. 

The room buzzed. All those who formed the lines 
of onlookers gazed steadily at the American gambler 
and the graceful woman in coral velvet who was his 
mascot. Once more the American gathered in his stack 
of chips and once more he turned to thank the strik¬ 
ingly beautiful woman behind him. Then again he won. 
And again. And again. 

It was early morning when Molyneux led Sandra 
out of the putrid air of the Casino—where human 
breath, tobacco smoke, perfumes of many scents and 
liquor fumes commingled to a stifling and poisonous 
gas—into a clean gray dawn whose distant horizon was 
gold-splashed. 

“We’ll open my cottage,” announced Molyneux, as 
they strolled along, “and we’ll have a few friends come 
there to play. Yes, Madame? And you, with your 
splendid luck, your so great favor with the gods of 
fortune, you shall be the banker!” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


R ICH men came nightly to the Molyneux villa, 
smiled into Sandra’s challenging, deriding eyes, 
played heavily and went away poorer. The 
American came regularly, lost vast sums, strolled now 
and then with Sandra through the minutes she could 
spare to him, on the flagged piazza outside the gaming 
room. And then one day he had no more money to 
lose and Molyneux frowned upon his non-paying visits. 

“But you’re not being fair,” defended Sandra early 
one morning, when Molyneux had voiced his displeasure. 
“If he no longer has money for gambling, it is because 
you have robbed him!” 

“Robbed? You infer that my rooms they are not 
run honestly?” Molyneux regarded her intently above 
the lighted match which he was applying to the end 
of a cigar. 

“Oh, I suppose,” shrugged Sandra folding her bare, 
white arms behind her superbly coilfed head, and re¬ 
turning his gaze with cool indifference, “yours are 
run about as honestly as any gambling places are ever 
run.” 

“Well, then?” 

“I object to your treatment of him now that you’ve 
enriched yourself at his lamentable expense.” 

“Madame is—ah!—delightfully inconsistent!” He 
blew a cloud of smoke into the stiflingly scented air, 
and throwing himself into a chair, looked up at her 
amusedly. “She forgets tha' she is a part of my ma¬ 
chinery. Is it not droll—yes? that she who is the 
253 


254 SANDRA 

Lorelei makes the fine criticism of the rocks on which 
she wrecks men?” 

Sandra’s lips parted. Her breath came sharply 
through her teeth. Her eyes blazed. She leaned against 
a green baize-topped table in an unconscious effort to 
still the sudden trembling of her fatigued body. 

“So!” she cried, her voice tense with emotion, “it was 
for that, you wanted me. The Lorelei! Your bait! 
A part of your machinery!” Her voice caught strang¬ 
ling^ in her throbbing throat, her eyes narrowed, her 
restless fingers twisted disastrously at the bronze se¬ 
quin-scales of her shimmering sheath-like gown. “Oh! 
But this is my life’s greatest jest!” she laughed tune¬ 
lessly. “I look for romance—adventure, and I—I who 
am so clever—I who read men’s hearts, become the 
tool of a-” 

“Ah, Madame ! 55 interrupted Molyneux, tossing aside 
the freshly lighted cigar and holding out his two hands 
palms upward. “But you are happy here! Is it not 
so? Yes?” His dark face smiled at her ingratiatingly. 

“Happy!” Sandra flung back her head and this 
time her laughter rose to a sharp crescendo. “I was 
not looking for happiness. I left that behind me—a— 
a century ago!” Her words broke on a stifled sob. Her 
lips writhed for an instant then she went on flatly. “I 
wanted excitement—adventure. Well,” came a carica¬ 
tured, scathing smile. “I’ve had it! I’ve bathed in 
the spume of hell!” She held out her two jewelled hands 
and looked at them critically as though she expected 
to find them dripping with slime. 

“Sandra!” Francis Molyneux got up from his chair 
and approached her with arms outstretched. “You are 



SANDRA 255 

most exquisite in this so wild mood. Come, I will kiss 
your lips to smiles!” 

“Yes?" Sandra’s slim figure bent slightly toward 
him, and even as Molyneux mentally likened her to a 
leopardess crouching in readiness to spring at his 
throat, she lifted one of her hands and slapped him 
stingingly across the cheek. 

“You scum of iniquity!” she cried. “Get out of my 
sight before I am tempted to kill you!” The words 
rushed hissingly like molten lava from her twisted lips. 
Her figure was swaying slightly. Her bare, satiny, 
white bosom was rising and falling with gusts of fury. 
“You dared to imagine that I loved you! Fool! Oh, 
you fool! You fool!" 

The man straightened to a rigidity. His eyes 
matched hers now in brilliance. 

“Fool?” he laughed his ridicule. “The fool,” he said 
coming menacingly close to her, “is not I ! Mon Dieu! 
No! Attendez! The petite girl of the chorus who 
comes sometimes here—you have seen her, yes? It is 
time I tell Madame the great news. She belong to me. 
C’est a dire , to-morrow I marry her.” 

Sandra’s eyes dilated, narrowed. Her delicate nos¬ 
trils quivered. 

“And your wife!” she reminded in a whisper, already 
dreading his answer. 

“Ah, Madame! The wife, she never was. I create 
her for one very good reason.” He laughed softly, 
and bowed low before her. When he had straightened 
again, his eyes met her gaze with frank amusement. 
“You see now, do you not, Madame, that it is you 
who have been the fool!” 


256 


SANDRA 


As the words insinuated themselves into Sandra’s 
aching brain, she was sickened by a nauseous feeling 
of self-loathing. A flood of shame poured devastat- 
ingly over her. She made her way slowly out of his 
presence and up to her room. 

When she seated herself mechanically at her dressing- 
table, there were the much-fought lines jeering at her 
from the corners of her dark-fringed eyes, and beneath 
the short wanton curls that veiled her forehead, were 
furrows triumphant. It was as though she had been 
masquerading in borrowed beauty, and anger and bit¬ 
terness had mercilessly unmasked her. 

Through the first hour of the dawn she sat there 
brooding, staring at her reflection with hot, resentful 
eyes. Then all at once she realized that the thing most 
hurting her was the fact that youth had supplanted 
her. She had not wanted Molyneux, but she had wanted 
Molyneux to want nobody else. It was stinging to 
know that a chorus girl’s insipid, empty youthfulness 
had won where artifices and artfulness had failed. 

She was a woman scorned and hell had no fury that 
equalled hers. 

At eight o’clock on this March morning when all 
Monte Carlo slept, a slim, unobtrusively-clad figure 
stood on the steps of a palatial villa and watched two 
noiseless menservants, who had been well tipped for 
their noiselessness, carry out her trunks. In her hand 
she held what seemed to be an extremely heavy black 
bag. 

“Money! Whose? Where did it come from?” ejacu¬ 
lated the astonished American when at eight-thirty in 
the sitting room of his hotel suite, he stood at one end 


SANDRA 


257 


of a carved walnut table and stared alternately at the 
contents of an open black leather bag which rested 
upon it, and at a white-faced woman who sat idly sip¬ 
ping a cup of coffee which he had poured for her from 
the pot on his hastily ordered breakfast tray. 

“Yours,” replied the woman laconically, “and I got 
it from the safe of a romance-monger.” 

“Molyneux! You—you took it from Molyneux’s 
safe!” 

“When he slept. Yes.’ 5 She helped herself to an¬ 
other cup of coffee and went on quietly. “He took 
from me my faith in my own cleverness while I was 
awake—hideously awake! We’re not quite even, but,” 
she indicated the bag with a movement of her head, 
“there is something off his side of the ledger.” 

“What will you do with it ?” asked the man studying 
the calm face that so recently had been convulsed with 
emotion. 

“Leave it here with you. It is yours!” 

“But I-” 

She held up her hand. 

“I wanted to hurt him. That,” again she indicated 
the bag, “was the only way.” 

“You did it—” the man’s face colored—“because you 
were—were sorry for me.” 

Sandra avoided his probing gaze. She dropped 
another cube of sugar into her steaming cup and 
smiled whimsically. 

“I am sorry only for myself,” she denied bitterly. 

The man fingered the braided edges of his lounging 
jacket, his eyes on the lovely face beneath the small 
veil-draped violet hat. 



258 SANDRA 

“You’re not—going back?” he faltered uncomfort¬ 
ably. 

She shook her head without looking up. 

“Tout passe!” 

“Sandra!” He was on his knees at her side. 

For the space of a breath she considered him as an 
insurance against impending loneliness, then again she 
shook her head and released her fingers from the hands 
that had clasped them. 

“You haven’t forgotten those moments on the 
piazza!” he cried, lifting his face beseechingly to hers. 
“You haven’t forgotten that wonderful day we had to¬ 
gether! You can-t have forgotten!” 

“They were but corners,” murmured Sandra, gently 
cruel, “and I’ve passed them. I must go on.” 

“You mean—” He got to his feet bewilderedly. 

“That you were an adventure, Freddy. A transient 
excitement.” 

“X—don’t understand,” he muttered thickly. 

“Nobody ever does,” sighed Sandra, elevating a slim 
shoulder. 

“You’re mad!” 

“Quite!” 

“Where will you go?” 

“Does it matter?” 

“X love you,” explained the man simply. 

Sandra looked up quickly. 

“X wonder,” she murmured calculatingly. “X won¬ 
der.” Then hastily: “X don’t know where X shall go. 
I’ve no plans. Plans are stupid. They’re a sort of 
schedule.” 

“And I,” remarked the man quietly, “shall not see 


SANDRA 


259 


you again? I am but a corner round which you have 
passed—an excitement that afforded you momentary 
pleasure ?” 

She inclined her head a little sadly. 

“Thank you for being frank,” he said stiffly. “Your 
candor is more merciful than—than your lies have 
been.” 

She rose slowly and fastened the small fur at her 
throat. Her hands were trembling. 

“Goodbye,” she said softly. “I—I’m sorry!” 

The man looked at her miserably as she stood for a 
moment in bas-relief against the stained panels of his 
door, but he did not see the shadows of remorse that 
darkened her eyes. He was seeing her once again as 
he had seen her a score of nights—a shimmering jewel 
in the arrogant splendor of a great room where men 
sat hunched over the edge of a long table, or stiffly 
straight leaned rigidly against it, their eyes glowing 
to fire or glazing to ice. He made a journey de capo 
over his association with her, and it left him fearful of 
the harm she might do—of the destinies with which she 
might interfere through the insidious grace and charm 
of her prismatic personality. As to what she was 
doing to herself he did not guess. Though he recalled 
that on one or two occasions her eyes had looked like 
barred doors to a haunted sepulcher. 

When she was gone and he was once more conscious 
of the black bag on the table, he summoned a messen¬ 
ger and arranged to dispatch a sum of money to the 
bank in Paris of which he had heard her speak. At 
least he would not allow her to outdo him in gallantry. 
He could force upon her half the money which he had 


260 


SANDRA 


lost during the past weeks, and which she had this 
morning returned to him. It was the sporting thing 
to do. Moreover it would pacify his conscience. 

When Sandra was informed at her bank of the sum 
of money to her credit, and had discovered the source 
from which it came, her lips curled contemptuously. 
4< What fools Don Quixotes are!” she thought. But 
her green eyes had softened to a velvety gray. 

With the experiences of Monte Carlo behind her, 
Paris offered her a feast of romance. It received her 
warmly, and it liked her immensely. And though it 
drew rather heavily upon her resources—demanded too 
many of the hours that she should have devoted to 
rest and to the business of recuperating, it neverthe¬ 
less entranced her. 

She was introduced into a gambling coterie by a few 
persons whom she had met in Monte Carlo, and at once 
she became the pivot round which its social intercourse 
revolved. The women envied her and bored her. The 
men admired her and entertained her. She flirted in 
her cool, satirical way, danced with an abandon that 
was ironically seductive without being sensuous, 
gambled imperturably and disdainfully, and carried 
about with her an odd air of expectancy. She appeared 
to be always looking for something which ever eluded 
her—a great moment, perhaps—a consuming love—an 
actual thrill. 

She was never alone. In her own sleeping chamber 
she provided a couch for her maid. She did not con¬ 
verse democratically with this servant, but she seemed 
to want somebody moving about, somebody in the room 
with her when she slept. She had a horror of clocks 


SANDRA 


261 


and calendars and would have one of neither in her 
rooms. She had a talking machine and a piano in¬ 
stalled in the living room of her apartment, and 
often in the early morning hours after the maid had 
prepared her for the night and arranged the covers 
over her still-girlish form, and had herself gone to 
sleep, she would be awakened by some mad melody 
issuing from one or the other instrument, to find 
her mistress moving wraithlike up and down the 
room. 

Sandra’s perfect toilettes and her air of distinction 
attracted flattering attention everywhere, and her man¬ 
ner of being always alert for new excitements—which, 
when they came, she took with languid undisguised dis¬ 
appointment—kept the more audacious of her admirers 
indefatigably planning for her. 

It came somehow to be understood that she would 
attend no social affair at which there was to be a guest 
of her own sex younger in years than she. And in the 
city where seductiveness is pitted against chastity, 
where wit plays against gold, where burnt-out souls 
reach hungrily for flame and the ghosts of dead hearts 
woo the love of the living, where music is vaguely 
sensual, where men plotting and counter-plotting are 
drugged with the sweet-scented air and the promising 
eyes of women whose red, red lips give silent invitation, 
where a woman with a past is more interesting than a 
girl with a future, this unwritten edict was easily 
observed, and it caused but small wonder. 

Summer arrived at the end of a gay spring. Sandra 
moved in queenly fashion to Deauville, where again 


262 


SANDRA 


she was the brilliant center of a gambling coterie. SKe 
danced and swam and promenaded the beach, and one 
afternoon toward the end of the season shocked and 
delighted the most blase and effete by ripping off a lace 
frock and diving from the end of a pier into the sea to 
save a man who was drowning. She brought the man 
safely in to the beach before the life savers had learned 
of his danger, and without the faintest evidence of self- 
consciousness, walked leisurely toward a bath house, 
her thin, pink silk undergarments clinging to her slim 
round limbs. 

In the fall when she was back again in Paris, a letter 
from-Gama Rartelle reached her. New York, it seemed, 
was humming with a million interesting things. For 
instance, she—Gania—was married again. Yes, really! 
Splendid chap ! Loads of money—real money—not 
rubles or marks. And she had a Russian wolfhound. 
Sandra could have no idea how becoming those Russian 
beasts were to her—Gania’s—style of beauty. She was 
letting her hair go back to its natural color. Since she 
had entered another marriage and expected this one to 
take, where was the use bothering with all the old stay¬ 
ing-young processes. From henceforth she was going 
to let nature take its course. After all, the simple life 
—if one included in it such innocent pleasures as bridge, 
dancing, motoring and theater parties—was the thing! 
Didn’t Sandra think so? 

And, oh, yes! She’d almost forgotten to mention 
David. She’d met him on Broadway one day—where, 
by-the-way, he was building a perfectly darling theater 
—and he hadn’t bothered to be very nice to her. He’d 
never liked her—Gania—had hep Well, anyway. 


SANDRA 


263 


grumpy as he was, she had managed to get out of him 
the statement that he was awaiting the return of his 
wandering wife! Wasn’t that too deliciously funny! 
She could just imagine Sandra ever going back to 
that old sail-boat, trout-fishing, hiking stuff—NOT! 
He’d frowned at her suggestion of divorce. „ Said he 
didn’t believe in divorce, and all that rot. And at her 
hint that Sandra might desire legal freedom, he an¬ 
nounced rather savagely that that remained to be 
seen. What else could he have meant but that Sandra 
might sue and her suit go un-contested ? 

She had seen him again motoring toward Sea Cliff 
with that lustrous-eyed Stanley girl. Of course Mate 
Stanley was merely a pretty brown and amber flapper, 
but—well, one never could tell about men—the brutes. 

And over this letter Sandra brooded through a dis¬ 
mal autumn. For weeks she went practically nowhere. 
The far corners were beginning to seem less enticing. 
Excitement no longer entirely appeased her. It had 
promised to be a rejuvenating elixir. She was coming 
to find it merely a mild intoxicant. It could effervesce 
her spirit, animate her stagnating emotions, only mo¬ 
mentarily. Its inevitable reaction despoiled her of the 
strength and even the will to defend herself against 
Rusty the Flagellant. 

A pseudo-gay winter terminated in a retrospective 
spring. Paris began to bustle about in its anticipation 
of the approaching summer, but Sandra, suddenly with¬ 
drawing herself from all social intercourse, wandered 
through the fevered streets aimlessly. 

To her retrospective ears the music of newly awak¬ 
ened hurdy-gurdies, sounded weirdly like the swish and 
high-pitched murmur of the sea off Montauk Point, 


264 


SANDRA 


and the whir of motorcars transmuted itself into the 
creaking song of a sail-boat’s tackle. The paved 
streets, dissolving before her eyes, metamorphosed 
into a forest floor softly carpeted with pine needles and 
patterned with gold splotches where the sun filtered 
through the lace-clad, outstretched arms of trees. 
Electric signs that flashed through the dark of night, 
by some strange magic became glimpses of silver trout 
streams glinting against the purple sides of mountains. 

It was a day early in April while Rusty was in the 
ascendancy, that her trunks were suddenly and hastily 
packed, and passage to America was engaged. 

“Well,” she commented dryly, as she stood on the 
deck of an outgoing steamer and looked back at the 
rapidly receding land, “you’ve managed to get me this 
far, you should be satisfied.” 

“Not until we’re back with David,” demurred her 
alter ego boldly. 

“And you think, you homesick little fool, that you 
can make me acknowledge defeat to—to that extent?” 
She laughed as though at a ridiculous jest. “Humility 
is one of the few things you cannot force upon me! 
I shall be no returning prodigal. To a fatted calf 
of Sea Cliff I prefer the bitterest of wormwood.” 

What she would do when she reached America, she 
did not know. Thought of what Rusty might do 
chilled her hot pride and treacherously warmed her 
frozen heart. 

“I’ll be coming back soon,” she cried, involuntarily 
waving a hand to the thinning blur on the horizon. 
“You’ll keep me young yet a little while. And— Venice 
awaits me!” 


SANDRA 


265 


“Venice! Keep you young!” The sleeve of a Scotch 
plaid topcoat came to rest on the railing beside her 
shawl draped arm. “Sandra! Sandra Waring dropped 
out of the shies!” 

Blair! She knew it was he even before she lifted 
her head and looked round. There was no mistaking 
his half-laughing voice, 

“Channing! You dear, blessed old thing!” she cried, 
joy rampant within her at sight of an old friend. She 
thrust her two hands into his and tilted her head to 
appraise him. “You’ve been in Europe and I didn’t 
know! Chan! Chan! Why didn’t you look me up ? 
You can’t guess what a tonic you’d have been for me!” 

“And how would I know where to find you? The 
world is such a vague, indefinite address.” 

“I did rather lose myself, didn’t IP” she remarked 
triumphantly. 

“I don’t know. Did you, San?” He loosed reluct¬ 
antly his clasp of her hands and watched her narrowly 
as she made a silent business of tucking a wind-blown 
curl into the confines of the snug-fitting little hat from 
which a long taupe-colored veil floated its ends like 
pennants in the breeze, 

“The stodgy part of me, yes,” she conceded finally. 
“That is,” she added, looking out at him from behind 
the fringe of her half-closed eyes, “almost!” 

Blair glanced speculatively back at the irregular 
black tape along the horizon. 

“You’ve been chasing a mirage, Sandra,” he ven¬ 
tured gravely. 

The green eyes dilated, narrowed. But she laughed 
disarmingly. 


266 


SANDRA 


“Is reality any more satisfying?” she fenced. 

Without warning his gaze came back to her, and 
he caught a fleeting glimpse of Rusty before Sandra 
could force her retreat. But though thereafter he 
watched through long deck-spent hours with her for 
further signs of this part of Sandra that David loved, 
he did not again see Rusty. 

“Why did you not appear in court or have a legal 
representative there to defend your reputation against 
Janet’s silly charges?” he demanded to know, when 
stretched at full length on steamer chairs after lunch¬ 
eon, they had drifted to the subject of his divorce. 

Sandra smilingly elevated her brows and made a 
faint deprecating gesture. 

“Of what use? The press had already found me 
guilty!” 

“But,” floundered Blair, leaning toward her to touch 
a lighted match to her poised cigarette, “you owed 
that much to David!” 

“To David?” She looked round at him questioningly. 

“Of course. However indifferent you might have 
been to the scandal, you should have considered how 
terribly it could hurt him!” 

“In business? I—I didn’t think of that. Tell me,” 
she flung her unsmoked cigarette over the railing into 
the sea, “did it do him any harm in that way?” 

Blair modified his opinion about her feeling for 
David. He regarded her steadily. 

“No,” he admitted. “Such scandals are too common 
in this age to cause injury to a man professionally. 
But he-” 

“It’s a perfectly sporting age!” acquiesced Sandra 



SANDRA 


267 


buoyantly, extracting another cigarette from the gold 
case in her lap. 

“Your putting in no defense was enough to convince 
David of your guilt!” 

Leaning forward for another light, Sandra looked 
at him through the veil of her lashes. 

“That,” she announced pointedly, “was precisely 
why I let the matter go by default.” 

“Then you mean never to return to him!” 

She settled herself undulatingly, leaned her snugly 
hatted head against a tiny pillow at the top of her 
chair back, and assumed an attitude of absolute repose. 

“It would not be the sporting thing to do. I’m dam¬ 
aged goods, Chan!” 

Blair stared. Damaged goods! Good God! How 
calmly she said it! 

“I’ve got to go on,” she declared half to herself. 

“To the jumping off place?” 

“To the jumping off place!” 

“But you’re ruining David’s life! He has silly no¬ 
tions about divorce. And that Stanley girl is breaking 
her heart with love for him!” 

“Queer—this thing we call life, isn’t it, Chan old 
thing? Can’t seem to solve it!” 

He found himself suddenly pitying her. 

“You’re wearing yourself out,” he declared vehe¬ 
mently, his thin lips straightening to a disapproving 
rigidity. 

She turned her head slightly and looked at him. 

“But I must see with my eyes, breathe with my 
nostrils, feel with my fingers, all the business of living!” 

Blair shook his head hopelessly. 


268 SANDRA 

“You’re bent on self-destruction,” he declared 
gravely. 

For an instant the white lids of the eyes that reflected 
the green of the sea which stretched interminably 
away from them in all directions, flickered despite San¬ 
dra’s skepticism. 

“X can’t sit still and listen to the hardening of my 
arteries!” she protested finally. Then with cool bland¬ 
ness she added: “To belong to the placid bourgeoisie 
is scarcely satisfying to one who is capable of Society 
or Sing Sing.” 

“Suffering snakes! You’ve got me stumped! What 
can X say to you?” 

“Nice things, Chan. Nice things. Just for a change.” 
She gave him a luminous smile. She was still the Sandra 
he used to know. Gay, ironical, elusive, dominant. 

“I haven’t grown much older, Chan?” She turned 
her carefully made-up face full upon him. “Haven’t 
changed much, have I?” 

Blair hesitated. The lovely eyes looking anxiously at 
him were old as Wisdom. They were haunted things 

coldly appraising, unfancying, disillusioned things. 

“Have I, Chan?” she persisted, her red lips parting 
breathlessly. 

“Not physically,” he ventured, wondering if this 
would satisfy her. 

Her delicate nostrils quivered. In her lap her loosely 
folded hands moved slightly. 

“I’ve lived a thousand years,” she whispered with a 
curious intensity. “I—I don’t look it, do I? Bo /, 
Chanf” 

“You don’t look older than—than thirty,” exclaimed 


SANDRA 269 

Blair emphatically. God! How important the matter 
was to her! Made her some way pitiable—tragic. 

She gave him a swift glance and finding in his face 
no contradiction of his words, she laughed softly, trill- 
ingly, like a distance-muffled flute. 

“Dancing,” she explained, laying a hand friendlily 
on his arm. “Dancing and plastic surgery!” 

Blair looked puzzled. 

“Dancing has kept me supple,” she indicated the 
slender limbs the beauty and shapeliness of which were 
not entirely hidden even by the heavy steamer rug that 
covered them. “Plastic surgeons have taken reefs in 
my face. “Oh!” she laughed, “you needn’t examine me 
so closely, the tiny thread-like scars are above the 
edges of my hair.” Then with narrowing eyes: “I 
know what you meant when you said I was unchanged 
physically. “You’ve had a glimpse of Rusty. Poor 
thing! She’s worn out, ashamed, lonely, homesick, 
heartbroken. She doesn’t sleep—much, and she’s for¬ 
ever trying to make me-” 

She broke off abruptly and flinging her rug aside got 
to her feet in one swift, graceful movement. 

“Like to watch the seagulls, Chan? I do,” she said, 
going over to the railing and catching her gaze to a 
sailing bird. 

“Because they’re like you—forever wandering—for¬ 
ever seeking?” he asked obliquely, coming to her side. 

She leaned against a stanchion and surveyed him 
coolly, her small chin lifted to an arrogant defiance, 
her smile half-mocking. 

“Because they’re like me,” she replied. “Forever 
wandering—forever seeking!” 


CHAPTER XIX 


S TANDING a little behind her on an upper deck 
as the steamer slid into the New York harbor, 
Channing Blair watched Sandra thoughtfully. 
For an hour she had been standing there, wrapped in 
a smart camel’s hair coat, a small chic black hat pressed 
low over her flaming hair, her elbows on the railing, her 
face landward. She had discouraged his efforts at 
conversation, and at his launching into an awkward 
monologue about the splendor of Manhattan’s skyline, 
she had made an impatient gesture and murmured 
something about him being trite. 

Now as he watched her his smoldering resentment 
died to an ash, and his throat became oddly constricted. 
A brotherly tenderness rushed through him. His heart 
swelled with pity. And yet for the life of him he 
could not have put into words his reasons for pitying 
her. She did not look in the least forlorn or abject. 
Indeed, the old familiar derisiveness was in the smile 
that played abstractedly round her flagrantly rouged 
lips. But somehow, she made him think of her gay, 
taunting father and of how mockingly he had strode 
through the gates of death. The mockery of her was 
like a high blind courage that shrugged disdainfully 
at disillusionment. 

As the steamer approached the great torch-bearing 
statue that rose majestically out of the water a hundred 
yards away, he saw Sandra lift her face as to an idol. 


270 


SANDRA 


271 


“Goddess of Liberty!” she murmured, and the words 
were carried to him on the breeze. “High priestess of 
Freedom! Sister of Mine!” She made a decorative 
semi-salute. “I—I’m sorry for you! Being free is 
such a lonesome business! Still, it’s rather amusing, 
isn’t it? To hold out your light and—and draw men 
to you! I find it so, when—my light doesn’t flicker. 
You see,” she elevated a shoulder deprecatingly, “I’m 
partially occupied by a puritan sort of creature who 
thinks my light should shine for but one man—a dear 
shambling Peter Pan of a fellow who lives on Long 
Island—and sometimes she turns my light down!” 

Channing Blair shivered. Beautiful, warring San¬ 
dra! Shamed, heart-broken Rusty! What would be¬ 
come of them? Which one would triumph in the end? 

He moved nearer and touched her arm. 

“You’ll permit me to look after you at the pier?” 
he inquired gently. 

She looked round at him dazedly. 

“Oh, it’s you!” she said, as though she had expected 
to see somebody else—somebody of whom she had, per¬ 
haps, been thinking. She put out her hand with a 
warm, apologetic smile. “Thanks, no. I’ve sent a 
wireless to a—a friend. I think he will meet me.” 

When they docked, Blair stood somberly on the 
port-side deck and watched Sandra Waring go down 
the gangplank and into the arms of a tall, graceful 
man with a dark, sardonic face. He never saw her 
again. 

Through the drive uptown neither Sandra nor Ste¬ 
phen Winslow spoke except to voice an occasional brief 
monosyllable. Each was emotion-choked and each was 


272 


SANDRA 


unwilling to confess it. Stephen’s gaze was fixed 
hungrily to Sandra’s perfect profile. Sandra’s eyes 
were staring mistily, reminiscently out the cab window 
to old familiar scenes. There was the entrance to a 
subway station—the mouth that took in and swallowed 
endless herds of human beings with which it gorged 
its great underground maw. Here was Trinity—serene 
as ever—with its worn stones marking the spots where 
lay the ashes of men and women who had lived and— 
and loved—romanced and adventured—in a long ago 
day. She shivered. How inexorably Death stalked 
the world! All this Broadway procession of animated, 
living, loving, adventuring beings would one day be of 
no more importance to themselves or to others than 
the little heaps of dust beneath those Trinity stones! 
Why was it! Why did it have to be! Why! Why! 
Why! 

Wall Street! How set were the faces of its men! 
And yet how much more interesting were their taut 
lives than the unruffled existence of the clock-punching 
clerks! And up there against the sky was the lacy 
tower of the Woolworth Building. She’d gone up to 
its very pinnacle one time with David! He’d been 
afraid for her. Afraid she might grow faint. As if 
heights could undo her! He’d held her hand, and talked 
to her about the tower he should one day build, and 
she hadn’t listened. She’d been looking down at the 
dwarfed world with the curious, exhilarated feeling that 
she had solved its mystery. But once more on the 
street below, she had immediately become pigmied. She 
had looked back up at the tower that touched the sky 
and had shrunk annoyingly. 


SANDRA 


273 


And so it was that she would not turn her face to 
Stephen, and that silence reigned between them. But 
once inside the sitting room of a hotel suite which 
Winslow had hastily engaged for her, Sandra swept 
him into a torrential stream of words. And Winslow 
looking inquisitively into her wide, unfathomable eyes 
found her fascinating as ever. She had still that 
intriguing air of mystery, still that dazzling charm of 
manner. 

When the chic black hat and the camel’s hair coat 
had been removed and she stood before him a radiant 
creature in soft black satin, it was with difficulty that 
he restrained his desire to take her again in his arms. 
He knew that he could not hope to win her in this 
first hour of her home-coming. 

“And of course,” she was saying, “there was no use 
letter-writing when there seemed such small chance of 
my ever seeing you again—that is, this side the wheel¬ 
chair age. But Rusty took a mean advantage of me. 
Packed my trunks and took passage at a time when 
I was-” 

“Homesick?” 

“Homesick! Don’t be ridiculous, Steve!” A frown 
slid like a shadow across her face, but it was instantly 
followed by a quizzical smile. “Why on earth should 
I be homesick! The winter whirled by like—like the 
carousal I used to promise myself. And the spring—” 
she wrenched her gaze from his, and seating herself in a 
chair motioned him to do likewise— “was a riot of gay 
affairs!” Oh, the hurdy-gurdies that had sounded like 
the swish of the high-pitched murmur off Montauk 



274 SANDRA 

Point! Oh, the paved streets that had dissolved into 
forest floors! 

She took a lipstick from her gold vanity case and 
applied it brazenly to her lips. Its touch restored her 
flagging spirit to its habit of nonchalance. She flung 
herself into an abandon of picture-drawing—choosing 
sharp, vivid colors for the splashing in of Monte Carlo, 
Corot grays and diamond dust for the days and nights 
of Paris, and with swift strokes made a composite 
sketch of laughter, herself and the cry of “On with 
the dance!” 

Winslow feasted his eyes on the gorgeous tones of the 
thick titian hair that was, as he remembered it had 
always used to be, arranged to a careful carelessness. 
And after a time, as she talked and smoked, his gaze 
swept down past her expressive red mouth to enjoy the 
languorous, exotic grace of her satin-swathed body. 
His face went a little dark suddenly, and without warn¬ 
ing his heretofore suppressed jealousy took possession 
of him. He got up from his chair and stood over her, 
and though he surprised her by his demand that she 
tell him the truth about her life in Europe, she found 
his smile tauntingly inscrutable, his eyes barren of 
concern. 

“There’ve been men, of course,” he said persuasively, 
pocketing his hands in his determination to keep them 
off her slim shoulders, off her faintly vibrating breast. 

“And why shouldn’t there have been?” she drawled 
archly. 

“And they’ve been generous! You—you’re wearing 
beautiful jewels!” 

“They are beautiful, aren’t they?” She looked ap- 


SANDRA 


275 


preciatively down at the rings on her long tapering 
fingers and the bracelets on her white wrists. 

“But you’re getting older. How many of them love 
you? How many of them will want you—after awhile? 
Won’t you go the way of others? Won’t you who 
have been sought, finally become the seeker? Won’t 
you eventuate in young picture actors who will trade 
flattery for one of your rings? Wouldn’t you be wiser, 
San, if you gave yourself up entirely to me, who will 
love you always? These other men-” 

“Stop!” Sandra was on her feet, her face livid. 
His first words had paralyzed her—coagulated her 
senses, but reaction had come swiftly, and it had gal¬ 
vanized her to a throbbing resentment. 

Fiercely she paraded for him the story of her life 
in the two years of her absence, ^hat had he to say 
about it? Did he think she was his chattel? Love? 
Oh, it was to laugh! What business was it of his if 
she had experienced the vacuous condition of adoles¬ 
cence—the ridiculous hysteria of knobby-jointed youth! 
Couldn’t he understand that life to her was composed 
of a series of corners—of strange problems that piqued 
her! Couldn’t he see that he was but one of those 
corners—one of those interesting problems! . . . 

She regretted the words directly they were spoken. 
She had not meant to say them. She had wanted to 
evade—to parry his merciless questioning. But he 
had goaded her by putting into words the formless 
fears that had of late been pressing insidiously upon 
her. There had come to her suddenly a swift, unrea¬ 
soning impulse to hurt him. In utter abandonment 
she had flung her words at him. Concise, bald words 



276 


SANDRA 


that could not be misunderstood. She had risen ex¬ 
citedly at his first sounding of her nameless fears, and 
after her first cry, had stared at him a moment in 
silence. She remembered distinctly swaying toward 
him even in that brief interval of hatred, just as she 
had always swayed toward him from the first instant 
of their meeting when she had felt his strange, com¬ 
pelling magnetism. 

She had sensed rather than seen the curtain of his 
immobility lift in that lightning flash when emotion 
surged into his face, and instead of the gloating which 
she might have expected, there rushed through her 
an agony of regret, a strangling horror. She had 
alienated this man to whom, she knew now, she had in¬ 
tended to give herself. She had wantonly destroyed 
an anchorage. How had she dared, now that ports had 
begun to close themselves to her! What spirit of reck¬ 
lessness had possessed her! 

She leaned a little toward him, her eyes softening to 
an opalescence, her lips slightly parted, a ringed hand 
at her palpitating breast. 

“You couldn’t have expected of me undeviated stiff¬ 
ness, Steve. I who am mad with something of your 

own madness! You—you always understood. I_I 

thought your code of living could be mine, and that— 
that you would would be big—with me—as women for 
ages have—been with men. You will be, Steve ?" 

He did not answer. He was staring at her as though 
he had never seen her before. She shuddered, fried to 
speak ano found no voice for her quivering lips. 

Through the open windows came noises of the street 
in muffled rhythms. A pigeon lighted for an instant 


SANDRA 


277 


on one of the windowsills, and peered inquisitively in 
at them, as if wondering what troubles human beings 
could have when all the world was filled with the sun¬ 
shine, the flower seeds, the careless bugs and the spears 
of sweet grass of April. A lace curtain whispered 
under the spell of a faint breeze. There was the soft 
sound of a woman’s sigh. 

“Have you nothing to—say, Steve?” asked Sandra 
at last, groping her way through the silence that hung 
between them. 

“Nothing!” His voice was tuneless and without 

life. 

“Then I shall—go,” she said, trying to smile indif¬ 
ferently. She took up her hat and put it on slowly. 
Well—her smile became cynical, and somewhat trium¬ 
phant—she had discovered another perversity in the 
heart of man. Stephen had wanted her when she was 
the wife of David—would have glossed over the law¬ 
lessness of an illicit relationship between her and him¬ 
self. Stephen had jeered with her at the stupid con¬ 
ventions which corseted the world. But Stephen-the- 
lawless stood suddenly aghast at the lawlessness of 
another, because that other was a woman! And she— 
this woman—was left free to—to go on with her ex¬ 
ploring. 

She gathered up her wrap and bag, and looking at 
him with all the invitation that she could summon to her 
half-veiled eyes, held out a gloved hand, palm upturned. 

“At least, Stephen, dear,” she drawled softly, “you 
will fasten my glove?” 

Without removing his gaze from her, he took the 
narrow, gloved hand in one of his and snapped the 


278 


SANDRA 


small pearl button into place, and though the gloved 
fingers nestled suggestively against his palm, he 
dropped them without having given them the slightest 
pressure. 

“I told you,” she commented, her eyelids fluttering, 
“when I went away, that day down at the pier—that 
you—you would not—not want me when I came back. 
I had a—a premonition of this! I’m rather addicted 
to premonitions.” A frightened look passed transiently 
through her eyes. “Still, I had thought—I had thought 
that after all, we—j-ou and I, might strike it off rather 
well together. Was even prepared for staid domesticity 

dull respectability, though I doubted if you would 
demand or want either.” 

After waiting a full minute for his reply which did 
not come, she went on evenly : 

“Sorry, Steve old dear,—” her voice broke a little 
though her lips still lifted at the corners whimsically— 
“that you’ve found me too much like you to—to deserve 
forgiveness. My real crime is my sex!” She laughed 
with perfectly simulated indifference and moved as if to 
go. Goodbye! she said, quite as if she were going 
from him for but an hour. “Goodbye, Stephen!” 

She expected him to put out a hand to stay her, but 
he stood motionless. The satin draperies of her gown 
fluttered against him as she passed, and she thought 
she saw him start and quiver under the contact, but 
she could not be certain, and—anyway, why should she 
care? Had she not been saved from settling down to 
monotony! And was not Venice awaiting her! 

Goodbye,” she said again, almost gaily, her eyes 
clinging to his. 


SANDRA 


279 


“Goodbye,” he muttered. “God grant that I may 
never see you again!” 

But he did see her again, saw her and filled with 
anguish at memory of this moment when she had gone 
from him with her nonchalance flying at half mast—this 
moment when he might have taken her and—did not. 

Sandra arranged to have her trunks which had not 
yet arrived from the ship’s dock, sent on to the Plaza, 
and leaving behind her the hotel to which Winslow had 
so happily brought her, she taxied up Fifth Avenue, 
determinedly alert to the well-known, memory-en¬ 
shrouded sights that met her feverish gaze. 

And in the evening, though she had had no slightest 
intention of doing so, she took a train to Sea Cliff. 

For a long interval she stood irresolute on the little 
platform at her journey’s end, looking broodingly 
about her. There was the hill down which David came 
each morning on his way to the city. Up there was the 
church spire at which she had used to gaze so specu¬ 
latively. And over beyond the hill was a low-roofed 
house where a shambling boy grown big had used to 
whisper to her his dreams of the little son that never 
was. And next to this house, separated only by a low 
hedge which the shambling boy had grown big could 
so easily hurdle, was another house where dwelt a 
slip of a girl—all youth, all laughter, all glowing-eyed 
and loving. 

“It will be good for me to glimpse the old humdrum!” 
she murmured reassuringly. “Make me better satis¬ 
fied with This Freedom!” She left the little station and 
walked slowly up the short hill toward the cliff. 

Crickets chirruped their welcome. The silent, slum- 


280 


SANDRA 


bering lane into which she finally turned seemed to 
awaken at her coming. A swallow skimmed audaciously 
past her, came swooping back, circled her head and 
flew off down the road as though to herald her ap¬ 
proach. Fragrance of early blossoms and freshly 
turned earth rushed out to her from tiny gardens. A 
friendly little toad hopped twice across her path, each 
time almost touching the low-cut, patent leather shoes 
that were shining with caresses of moonlight. Spar¬ 
rows peered curiously from shrubs and trees, and 
stretching their wings like welcoming arms, made little 
sleepy noises. 

And then at last, there was the house in which she 
had lived with David, gazing at her with its glistening 
window panes. And here were the maple trees under 
which—ankle deep in their discarded leaves—she had 
stood an eternity ago while she had whispered her last 
goodbye to monotony and uneventful happiness, and 
their virgin green leaves were moving together like tiny 
hands joyously clapping. 

Sandra leaned against one of the maples and looked 
at the house which had witnessed her separation from 
David. She was surprised to find that the veranda no 
longer flaunted its former collection of gay pillows. 
And yet, she had known that they would not be there. 
She missed them. Without them the house looked like a 
flowerless, forgotten grave. The screen doors were 
painted black. David had always loved black trim! 
But black doors! How somber l How some way lonely! 

Slowly she lifted her eyes to the narrow French win¬ 
dows at the near corner just beneath the roof. Her 


SANDRA 281 

lips parted breathlessly, a slim gloved hand fluttered 
up to her throat. 

“It was on the sill of this nearest window,” whispered 
Rusty sorrowfully, “that you sprinkled your scented 
talcum, calling it fairydust, and insisting that because 
of it we could fly away to the Never-never-land!” 

“And haven’t we flown there!” sharply demanded 
Sandra under her breath. 

“To the Never-never-land, yes. It will always be 
Never-never! Can’t you see that it will be?” 

Sandra laughed softly and stretched her arms. 

“I’ve spread my wings. I’ve learned to fly. Why 
should I walk!” 

But as the outstretched arms dropped to her side, 
one of the gloved hands slid with a wistful tenderness 
down the trunk of the maple tree. 

The Stanley door opened suddenly while her eyes 
were upon it, and a tall man—a man with a shambling 
walk, a rumbling voice and a great shock of hair, and 
a girl with a tinkling laugh, came rumbling, shambling, 
dancing, laughing down the walk toward the street and 
the—maple tree. 

Sandra shrank closer to the tree, her hand pressed 
tight against her mouth, her breath imprisoned in her 
throbbing throat. 

—-“And all the time I played,” the girl was saying, 
“you kept your elbows on your knees and your head 
in your hands, as though you were—were listening to 
something else. Of course, I know you couldn’t have 
been, for there wasn’t another sound in the house. 
Funny, how quiet it is when Bobbie isn’t here! But 
you! You acted as if you were not hearing me!” 


282 


SANDRA 


“You played Mendelssohn’s Spring Song!” said the 
man gravely, yet with apparent desire to soothe. “She 
used to play that. Rusty.” 

“I know,” breathed the girl, pausing at the end of 
the hedge and forcing him to pause. “But I play 
a lot of things she used to play. You’ve asked me to.” 

The man lifted his great bare head and looked off 
down the shadow-dappled, moonlit road, and the woman 
clinging to the maple tree not twelve feet away listened 
achingly for his reply. It came at last and she was 
amazed to find that it made her want to weep, she who 
could not afford to weep, since weeping wrote lines on 
one’s face. 

“Please don’t ever play the Spring Song for me 
again, Mate dear. The other things were—were San¬ 
dra’s. The Spring Song belonged to—Rusty.” 

“Oh!” The girl sighed. Then with sweet generosity: 
“I—I wish she’d come back, don’t you, David?” 

Came a strained silence. Then through the chorus 
of chirruping crickets sounded his voice in answer. 

“I want her,” he said simply, “only if she wants to 
come.” 

“See what you have done to him!” cried Rusty voice¬ 
lessly. 

“I’ve given him youth!” defended Sandra. 

“But you’ll never be happy,” argued the girl with 
innocent craftiness. 

“Never in quite the—same way,” the man admitted 
honestly. 

“And I—Oh, David, dear! I so want you to be 
happy!” There were tears in the sweet, tremulous 
voice. 


SANDRA 


283 


“You make me happy, Mate. You’ve been the one 
ray of light in the dark of my loneliness. You’re very 
deep in my heart—what’s left of it.” 

“Am I? Oh, am I, David?” 

Two small hands clasped themselves ecstatically 
round the man’s arm, and impulsively the arm freed 
itself and tenderly encircled the slim, girlish figure. 

The woman beneath the maple tree closed her eyes. 
She could see no more! If only she need hear no more! 
If only they would move on—go away! And after a 
while they did turn about and walk leisurely arm in 
arm, back to the Stanley house, but it was not until 
she had heard the man promise to meet the girl in New 
York at the Aeolian Hall at the end of a recital which 
to-morrow she was going to bear. They were to dine in 
town and to drive home in the Waring car. And on 
Saturday they were to go for a sail! 

“How stupid!” murmured the woman under the 
maple tree. “How ineffably stupid!” 


CHAPTER XX 


I T was nearly ten o’clock when Sandra found her¬ 
self once again in the Pennsylvania Station. She 
neither saw nor heard the hurrying commuters, 
the train announcers, the clank of iron gates, the rat¬ 
tling of baggage trucks or the whimpering of sleepy 
children. Her white gloves were soiled, her neck 
scarf of mink fur hung unfastened across her shoul¬ 
ders, her patent-leather shoes were gravel-scarred and 
mud stained, her face was drawn and tense and streaks 
of mascara washed from her lashes—accentuated the 
pallor of her cheeks. 

Blindly she walked through the great vaulted build¬ 
ing and out upon the street, where for several sec¬ 
onds she stood staring querulously about at the con¬ 
fusion of interlacing taxicabs, then as though she had 
need to walk, she turned aimlessly into a cross street 
running east. Broadway. Fifth Avenue. Madison 
Avenue. Fourth Avenue. At Third Avenue she 
turned north mechanically, gliding along in that half- 
hurrymg, half-languorous manner which was so 
peculiarly graceful, past groups of sidewalk visitors, 
through streams of homebound movie fans, and as she 
went people turned to look at her. They whispered 
and stared. But she neither heard nor saw. 

Block after block she walked. Past squalid res¬ 
taurants smelling of rancid grease, drug stores with 
bleary red and green eyes, barber shops with white 
284 


SANDRA 


285 


shrouded chairs, sticky looking ice cream parlors, and 
gloomy, dark little clothing shops that seemed to be 
asleep. But she was conscious of none of these strange 
things. Children, dirty and half-clad carrying twin¬ 
kling sticks of Chinese punk, looked at her out of old- 
young eyes, and here and there from a tiny, gas-lighted 
vestibule, tired slatterns, sometimes singly and some¬ 
times in huddled groups, stared moodily out into the 
ominously still, and unseasonably hot night. 

Came a spasmodic spattering of raindrops. Pedes¬ 
trians began to quicken their steps. A few bowed 
their heads and ran. Clusters of them gathered under 
sheltering awnings. The rain drops became finer and 
more frequent. The garish red and green brilliance 
of a corner drug store scintillated through the fine 
wet veil of the night and streaked shiningly the already 
wet street. A trio of girls dressed in cheap, tawdry 
party-finery ran with shrill giggles to the shelter of 
an open doorway. A lone automobile splashed through 
a series of puddles and turned round a corner. A 
slinking, shabbily dressed man looked furtively at the 
fashionably attired woman who was so obviously out 
of her element, and who seemed so completely indif¬ 
ferent to the rain that was drenching her, and a cal¬ 
culating gleam came into his little rat eyes. A jaunty 
youth, observing the man, swung out from the door¬ 
way of a cigar store, at the risk of ruining a blue 
serge suit on which he had probably several payments 
yet to make, and impatiently turning up his coat collar, 
hurried after the fashionably attired lady. 

“Like me to get you a taxi, Misses?” he inquired 
deferentially. 


286 


SANDRA 


Sandra slowed her step and looked at him dazedly. 
The slinking individual catching the warning frown on 
the husky youth’s face shrugged his narrow shoulders 
understandingly and slid noiselessly off down the 
street. The youth smiled genially. 

“Some wet night, ain’t it?” Then at Sandra’s 
apparent intention to move on: “Saw that bird had 
his eye on your junk,” he indicated with a nod of his 
head, a diamond brooch at Sandra’s throat where her 
coat and fur fell open, “and I thought I’d butt in. 
Better take a taxi, lady. Youse’ll be sick, gettin’ so 
wet! Shall I run acrost to Fort’ Avenoo and get 
you one?” 

“Yes. If you please. You—you’re very kind. I— 
I didn’t think!” 

“Well, you just stick around under this awning 
here, and I’ll be back in a second. If anybody bothers 
you, tell ’em you’re waiting for Tim Murphy, and 
they’ll leave you alone.” He straightened himself 
rather proudly. “I’m Tim Murphy—lightweight 
champeen of the east side.” 

Determinedly Sandra forced a smile, and though 
it was not the luminous lighting of her face which 
sometimes gave her incredible power, it sent the youth 
away dazzled. 

“Gee! A pippin! Not one of your wall-eyed flap¬ 
pers, but a lady that’s got the spots knocked off’n any 
skirt east of Fift’!” And as he came back with a glis¬ 
tening yellow taxicab, and found a freshly rouged and 
powdered Sandra smiling gratefully at him, he entirely 
forgot the damage to his new serge suit. 

“I didn’t know,” said Sandra, allowing him to help 


SANDRA 


287 


her into the car, “that real men like you were to be 
found at—at such queer corners!” 

And though the man did not in the least understand 
what the last of her sentence had meant, he stood 
under the awning with bared head, long after the yel¬ 
low taxicab had lost itself in the night, thinking about 
her, remembering her mysterious green eyes and her 
silken voice. 

“Wonder,” he soliloquized thoughtfully, “if she’s 
Ethel Barrymore! Or if she’s one of them Russian 
refugee princesses. She sure looked as if she’d seen 
terrible things—such as men getting slaughtered and 
so on! And me —Til never see her again!” 

And as she rode away through the drizzling rain, 
Sandra forgot all about Tim Murphy, champion light¬ 
weight of the east side, and though she did not lapse 
back into her former depression, she was still dully 
aware of the Rusty who was weeping behind her 
impassive face. It was not until her wet garments 
lay in a dejected heap on her bathroom floor, and she 
had emerged from a perfumed bath to swathe herself 
in a flimsy negligee, that Rusty successfully stormed 
the citadel of her Mona Lisa calm. All night long 
they argued and fought, jeered and wept—Sandra and 
Rusty, the homesick and the restless, the humble and 
the proud, the scorning and the scorned. 

When morning came it was Sandra who smiled 
triumphantly into the mirror—Sandra who made a 
leisurely, elaborate toilette—careful to camouflage 
the tired look round the green eyes that would not 
meet the eyes in the glass—and Sandra who ordered a 
heavy breakfast and pretended to eat of it ravenously. 


288 


SANDRA 


At noon she strolled out into a glorious, sunshiny 
day, and walked slowly down Fifth Avenue, deter¬ 
minedly interested in all that she passed, in all that 
passed her. It was Saturday. She must make the 
most of the day. To-morrow, being Sunday, she would 
more than likely be driven by a thousand blue devils. 
She hated Sundays. She resented their silences, their 
arresting of business and street life, their arrogant 
closing of theaters, their emptiness of things to do. 
They pitched her into the midst of tormenting memo¬ 
ries made the more vivid by the noiselessness and the 
dreary solemnity. 

She was tempted to call up Gania, but inasmuch as 
she was in no mood to meet new husbands, she refrained 
from doing so. She thought of several journalists 
with whom during her two years abroad, she had car¬ 
ried on a desultory correspondence. She had need of 
someone to smile at her, to say flattering things to 
her, to reinstate her with her vanity. Yet she felt 
that to-day she could not endure banalities. Better 
to have Rusty lash her on the raw than to listen to 
compliments from a man who would loathe her were 
she denuded of her careful make-up. Cynicism pos¬ 
sessed her—tore at her vitals. Thus it was that she_ 

who hated to be alone, spent the first morning of her 
return to the country of her birth, wandering through 
the shops in a sort of frantic aimlessness. 

In the early afternoon she waited for Mate Stanley 
at the Forty Second Street entrance of the Aeolian 
Hall. She had purchased a chinelle-dotted veil in a 
department store nearby, and had put it on in front 
of an oval counter-mirror. It softened the look in 


SANDRA 


289 


her eyes, lent a delicate hint of youthfulness to her 
white skin, and served as a thin mask for the violent 
emotions that kept writing themselves round her lips. 

At the edge of a surging throng of women, a young 
lady in a blue tailored suit, soft round hat and Unify 
blue fox fur, stopped abruptly in her approach to the 
Aeolian Building, her great brown eyes dilating excit¬ 
edly. 

“Sandra!” She ripped herself from the weaving 
throng and flurried to Sandra’s side. “Sandra!” she 
cried, snatching up Sandra’s immaculately gloved 
hands. 

“If it isn’t my little one-time neighbor!” exclaimed 
Sandra affecting surprise. She withdrew her hands 
and turned her head slightly, as she saw the girl reach¬ 
ing up her face to kiss her. And at the same instant 
the smile on the girl’s lips stiffened. Each of them 
was thinking: “Her lips have kissed him!” 

“You—you’ve come back!” murmured the girl, mak¬ 
ing a brave effort to be glad. 

Sandra elevated her delicate brows. 

“One has to keep going, and after awhile one has 
to double back, though I’m not really doing that. 
I’m not retreating. Just ran over to satisfy Rusty.” 

“She’s still—with you?” breathed Mate Stanley 
wonderingly. 

Sandra nodded with arch regretfulness. 

“I couldn’t very well kill her, you know. Siamese 
creature!” 

“We—heard you were in Europe,” ventured Mate 
irrelevantly. 

Sandra bent her head, then she glanced specula- 


290 


SANDRA 


tively off toward the little park across the street, a 
faint thread of a frown between her perfectly shaped 
brows. 

Mate Stanley looked at her with a rush of admira¬ 
tion. How beautiful she was! How exquisitely she 
was dressed! The rakish black straw hat had no need 
of a label. It was distinctly Paris. The wide, 
extremely long sable scarf had cost—how much Mate 
could not even guess. The slender, low cut, high heeled 
black suede shoes flaunted tremendously expensive cut 
steel buckles. The dark green, three piece suit was 
smart beyond description. Mate thrilled with pride. 
This was the adored woman whom she had chosen as 
a pattern for herself. This beautiful woman with the 
subtly foreign air, and the costly wearing apparel was 
the goddess about whom she and Bobbie had used to 
dream. And yet, though admiration inflamed her, the 
heart in her flat, boyish breast was disloyally heavy. 
This was Sandra Waring come back out of mystery. 
This was David’s Rusty—come back perhaps, to claim 
her rightful place in David’s home! She clenched her 
little hands and blinked the brown eyes that were 
flooding with tears. 

“I—I’m so glad you’ve come back,” she said softly, 
sliding a timid hand along the silken sable that draped 
Sandra’s shoulder. I’m so glad, Mrs. San—Rusty!” 

Sandra winced. 

I m glad you’re glad,” she returned gaily, smiling 
into the elfinish face. £< But where were you going 
when I crossed your path so peremptorily?” 

Recital.” Mate cocked her head sparrow-like to¬ 
ward the building behind them. 


SANDRA 


291 


“Oh!” murmured Sandra, and intense disappoint¬ 
ment was permitted to shadow ever so transiently her 
lovely face. 

“You wouldn’t come a—along?” The girl was hon¬ 
estly eager. 

Sandra lifted a shoulder disparagingly. 

“Sorry. It would bore me. Can’t afford to be 
bored. Ages one so.” 

“Can’t I, then, come with you?” ashed Mate shyly. 

“Would you? How nice! We’ll be a little worse 
than middle class for an hour. We’ll run across there 
to Bryant Park and sit on one of those scarred old 
benches and—talk. Shall we?” 

“Oh, yes! Please!” This, thought Mate, was like 
her old Sandra—the Sandra who used to thrill the 
very fibers of her being. 

And it was in truth Sandra who sat finally beside 
her on a park bench and smiled coolly down at her. 
It was Sandra sans Rusty who turned Mate Stanley’s 
frank admiration into loathing. It was she who cari¬ 
catured the girl’s almost joyous smile into a frown of 
revulsion. She who removed from the clean young 
heart of David’s little neighbor, the obstacle of loy¬ 
alty. 

Unwittingly a weather-beaten old hag, unkempt and 
smelling of bad whiskey, helped her to do these things 
which, in the early hours of the morning, she had 
determined upon doing. 

Immediately she and Mate Stanley were seated, 
this ragged, vicious-faced derelict of the slums, 
smirked unsteadily up to them and in a maudlin voice 
begged for money with which to buy food. She ex- 


292 


SANDRA 


tended a grimy, claw-like hand beseechingly the while 
her lips writhed with the whimpering that issued from 
a cavernous mouth where shrunken, empty gums and 
long yellow, jagged teeth showed hideously. 

Sandra opened her gold mesh bag and extracting a 
com from its depths dropped it into the unclean palm. 

“How horrible!” whispered Mate as the creature 
slunk mutteringly away. She clung to Sandra’s arm 
in actual terror. 

“Yes.” From the corner of her eye Sandra sur¬ 
veyed the girl contemplatively. “It isn’t pleasant to 
admit it,” she ruminated, making a little grimace, 
but that is I—five or six years from now.” 

Mate Stanley’s hand fell from her arm, and her 
figure drew itself shrinkingly away to the far edge of 
the wooden seat. 

“How can you say that! How can you!” she cried, 
eyes widening. 

“Why,” explained Sandra, “can’t you see that I 
am going the way she must have gone?” She broke 
into a short, rueful laugh. 

“Oh! How can you! How can you!” repeated the 
girl in a voice of terror. 

“Why, my dear, it’s worth it! What matters it 
that the end of the primrose path means—wreckage- 
ruin, if one has plucked flowers all the way? What 
matters cheap whiskey or wood alcohol at the finish 
if one has had his share of champagne? What regrets 
should there be for a grimy hand seeking alms, if once 
it has known the warm chill of jewels or has touched 

the arm of a king? Isn’t what I am taking from 
life-” 



SANDRA 


293 


“Stop! Oh, please stop! I can’t bear it! That 
miserable creature;—that wretched, grinning gutter 
thing and—and you —” Mate Stanley looked terri- 
fiedly at the beautiful woman who was smiling serenely 
back at her. “Oh, I can’t bear it!” 

“Nor can I,” whispered Sandra to herself. She 
shivered. Hideous remnant of many debauches! Re¬ 
pulsive thing whose flabby will permitted her to drift 
into the very spew of vices! 

Will! That was what one needed. The will to 
live and to explore and to enjoy! And then the will 
to die before one’s white teeth became jagged and yel¬ 
low, before one’s appetite craved stronger exhilarants 
than cigarettes and romance. And if she herself were 
not to be flabby-willed she must continue with the plan 
which she had formulated when she had sat through 
the dawn of this morning, staring out over Central 
Park. 

There was David—David who must never again be 
robbed. And here was Mate—Mate whom she must 
make safe for marriage. Men fought great wars that 
the world might be safe for democracy. It was little 
enough that she should make herself loathesome to this 
girl who must have no regrets, no conscience-driven 
moments, when in the years to come a son of David’s 
called her Mother. 

“By the way,” her voice was brittle and flippant, 
“I must send my address to your brother Robert. 
Tell him I want him to call. I think,” she paused and 
leaning nearer laid a hand on her companion’s knee, 
“I might really come to love a chap like Robert. I’m 
frightfully tired of older men. Funny, isn’t it? that 


294 


SANDRA 


old men admire young girls and women who are no 
longer young want admirers of-” 

“I can’t listen to you!” cried Mate springing to her 
feet. “You are too terrible!” 

“You’re sorry for me!” protested Sandra, pretend¬ 
ing to misunderstand. “Don’t be. I’m not done for 
yet. Why, I’ve another year or two, at least, if I’m 
careful about my excesses—careful not to indulge in 
them too often. And after that—well,” she lifted her 
shoulders in a manner that expressed sublime indiffer¬ 
ence, “I’ll come and ask you for a coin to buy food.” 

“Oh! to think that it is for you that David sacri¬ 
fices his chance for happiness! And I’ve tried to 
make it—easy for him. Tried to-” 

“Don’t!” advised Sandra rising and, with a graceful 
movement, swinging her sable scarf around her throat. 
“Use all your cunning, my dear. Tell him you saw me 
and that I’m eager to be divorced. Tell him,” she 
hesitated and her white lids half closed over her burn- 
ing eyes, “that I’m hopelessly in love with a chap who 
wants to marry me. Tell him—oh, anything! Your 
woman instincts for winning the desired male, will 
tell you what to say to him. But, in the parlance of 
the streets, go to it, my dear, and—take with you my 
blessing. And when you’re married to him, try to 
remember that bearing his children can be divine ro¬ 
mance, and—and should you ever feel that life is 
cheating you. Oh, little Mate of the tortoise-shell 
eyes! know if you can, that your husband’s heart and 
home are—are more beautiful than an ultimate park 
bench and alms from strangers. Perhaps, some 
day-” 





SANDRA 


295 


“How dare yon to advise me! How dare you to— 
to even speak of—of him!** The girl’s lips were quiv¬ 
ering, her whole frame was trembling. She turned 
her back abruptly to the tauntingly smiling woman, 
and began to move off blindly down the path that led 
to the street. 

“You’ve forgotten to take my card for Robert,” 
Sandra called after her. “You didn’t say if he had 
finished college. But I’ll write him a note and if he 
is still away, you can forward it to him . . . Goodbye, 
Mate, dear!” 

The girlish figure did not turn. Its shoulders were 
moving convulsively. Its youthful head was bowed. 

Sandra gazed after her intently, an inarticulate 
sound in her throat, her eyes smarting. 

“There’s the last bridge burned,” she said under 
her bated breath. “And—there’s a girl made safe 
for marriage—safe for— David * 9 She caught her 
rouged lower lip between her small white teeth, but in 
spite of her will, a sob forced its way out. Ghosts 
came prowling into her eyes, but she frightened them 
away with a scornful laugh. The laugh turned out 
to be no more than a whisper. She did not recognize 
it as laughter. It was like some sighing thing scut¬ 
tling past her. She flung back her head and laughed 
again, and this time it was real laughter that jeered 
with her. 

“Youth,” she reflected contemptuously, “is so much 
more easily impressed with positive proof of the 
earthly punishment which is supposed to be invariably 
meted out to the bad, than it is by vague promises 
of the heavenly reward that may be in store for the 


296 


SANDRA 


good. Fear rules the weaklings of the world! Fear 
of scandal keeps many a woman virtuous! Fear of jail 
keeps many a man from committing theft! It is the hell- 
fire sermon that wins the most converts to a church!” 

Church! Jimsy! To-morrow morning she would go 
to hear Jimsy preach the word of his God. What a 
splendid way that would be to rid herself of the blue 
devils of Sunday! And wouldn’t it be amusing if 
Jimsy should look down at her and—dismiss his con¬ 
gregation unobjurgated! 

She walked to the front of the library building and 
paused for a moment to look about her, and to deter¬ 
mine what she could do with the remainder of the day. 
David’s theater called to her insistently, but she 
would not hear. Rusty had kept her awake all of last 
night. She should have no reason to gloat over her 
frayed nerves again to-night. Why, looking at David’s 
theater through Rusty’s eyes would be disastrous! 
She would be completely vanquished. She knew this— 
humiliating as the acknowledgement of it was. Oh, 
no! It was but a step and a heartbroken cry from 
David s theater to David’s feet and a prayer for for¬ 
giveness. Some day when Rusty had grown too old 
or too worn out to fight, she would look at this master¬ 
piece and—revel in the pleasure of remembering its 
builder. But not just yet did she dare to see it. 
She d walk about for awhile. And after dinner she’d 
go to see a drama. And to-morrow morning she’d at¬ 
tend services in the church of Jimsy-the-erudite. She’d 
seen him at a feast of Babylon and found him respon¬ 
sive. Now she would see him in the insulation of his 
vestments. 


CHAPTER XXI 


S HE sat far back in the well-filled church, in a 
seat that shared with her the colorful reflec¬ 
tions of a stained glass window. Her eyes were 
shadowed by her long dark lashes, her mouth 
was curved to a faint smile of skepticism. But for 
all her air of careless indifference, there was an an¬ 
guish of intensity about the narrow hands that were 
clasped violently together in the gray sik crepe of 
her lap. 

She was a little surprised that the sonorous tones 
of the great organ set something to vibrating within 
her. It had been many years since she had sat in a 
church and listened to the impressive notes of sacred 
music. It w r as most irritating, she told herself, to be 
made to feel unreasonably solemn by the sweet earn¬ 
estness in the clear young voices which the choir 
boys lifted in praises of God. She moved in her seat 
restlessly. Just in front of her a young girl and an 
older woman drew involuntarily closer together. The 
girl turned her head a little and whispered something 
that sounded like: “Mother!” and the woman smiled 
back at her with the holiest look on her face Sandra 
had ever beheld. A mother, she decided, could never 

know loneliness. Love was always hers. She was- 

What on earth was happening to her! Her head 
reared to an attitude of defiance. 

How childish to be taken in by the clever theatrical 
effects of Jimsy’s church! Such things as stained 
glass windows, a rumbling organ and rapt-faced choir 
297 



298 


SANDRA 


boys with angel voices, could well be expected to move 
the unquestioning—this mother and daughter, for 
instance. But why should she, who knew that this 
awe was an effect produced by sound and matter, con¬ 
fuse it with anxiety of the soul! What could a lot of 
air-pressured pipes and cleverly maneuvered stops 
have to do with offering proofs of Jimsy’s Divinity! 
Why should the sweetly singing voices of a group of 
boys, who were yesterday spinning tops and playing 
marbles, make her wonder if, after all, some divine 
spirit were not hovering near! It was too absurd! It 
was church hokum! And yet,—But how was it pos¬ 
sible! Was it hypnotism! Or was it Rusty! 

She moved again jerkily. The Reverend William 
James Hapgood was in the pulpit. Simon-Called- 
Peter! Jimsy-Afraid-of-Me! 

She leaned forward in her seat, her lips parting, 
her gaze fiercely compelling. 

William James Hapgood looked tenderly out over 
his congregation. Without warning, his gaze clashed 
into Sandra’s. He started perceptibly, closed his 
eyes, then opening them instantly, stared. He slid 
a hand slowly, reassuringly, over the printed face of 
his open bible. 

It couldn’t be—Sandra! It couldn't be! She was 
somewhere in Europe—he’d heard Monte Carlo rumors ! 
And—too, he was in the habit of fancying her here in 
his church. Though this was the first time his fancy 
had placed her out there in the midst of his congrega¬ 
tion. Always before she had projected herself against 
his Book of God—a vantage place from which she could 
taunt him when he tried to read his text. 


SANDRA 


299 


He looked down at her feverishly, oblivions to all 
the other faces lifted to his, and—once again she was 
in his arms, her translucent eyes moist, her heart 
answering beat for beat to his! And once again he 
was seeing her as she stood in a doorway telling him 
that she loved another man! 

“Sandra!” he whispered against the swishing little 
noises of a congregation that was settling itself in 
anticipation of the half hour of inaction through which 
it must listen to his sermon. 

And then, with his eyes on the beautiful—very 
beautiful at a distance which could soften a carefully 
applied make-up to a perfect naturalness—half-smil¬ 
ing face of the woman he loved, his painstakingly pre¬ 
pared sermon dissolved into a mad medley of bitter 
thoughts. 

“The wanton,” he began abruptly, trying vainly 
now to look away from the critical eyes, “does not 
always come from the hot-houses of the rich. Not 
always is she an exotic, carefully nurtured and deli¬ 
cately bred. She may come from a decayed end of an 
effete aristocracy. She may spring from clean soil 
or from muck. But whatever her origin, her charac¬ 
teristics are the same the world over. 

“The wanton takes. She seldom gives. All roads 
must lead to her feet. She loves the smoothness of 
her own skin, the glow in her own eyes, and her body 
is the altar upon which offerings must be laid. 

“The wanton may be learned as to books of men, 
or she may be frankly, defiantly ignorant. She may 
ply her arts with feline craftiness, or she may snatch 
her pleasures with savage impulse. She recognizes 


300 


SANDRA 


no laws save the laws of her flesh. Comfort she de¬ 
mands as her right. Luxury she takes as her due. 
Duty she knows not. A God she wants not.” 

He ran his trembling fingers through his crisp 
brown hair and went on impassionedly. 

“Her laughter is artificial. Yet it intoxicates men. 
Her demands empty purses and sometimes kill men’s 
souls. An empty purse is kicked contemptuously out 
of the way. A slain soul has as its requiem a mocking 
laugh. 

“The wanton may be lustrous. Her personality 
may shimmer, but she casts no reflection—she shares 
her pleasures with no one. If she marries, her husband 
becomes merely a sort of general liability insurance 
which frees her from responsibilities. He is the insu¬ 
lation that protects her against the world. If she 
wears him through—short-circuits him, he burns out 
and is— forgotten. 

“Like the carrion of the desert, her hunt for the 
things which her appetite demands is ceaseless because 
her hunger is insatiable. She fastens her talons into 
the tender flesh of love and picks its bones bare. The 
pleas of love anger her, just as the touch of silk 
soothes her. She is the parasite—the vampire—the 
voluptuary, and she wastes not so much as contempt 
on THE WOMAN who mothers the race. 

“From the refuse heaps of Europe, from the clean 
wombs of peasantry, from princes and paupers comes 
the woman. Her ancestry may be gold or it may be 
alloy—it seems to matter not in the great scheme of 
things. Perhaps there is some mysterious law that 
swings the scale of balance—perhaps a soul is breathed 


SANDRA 


801 


into eight females out of nine or perhaps the Divine 
Potter has a reason which we shall never guess, a 
reason for making the sacristy and the wine cellar, 
the parasite and the mothers of men, the butterfly and 
the bee, the wanton and. the woman. 

“The woman seeks not to devour, but to feed. From 
her breasts infants are fed. Her smiles are the foods 
upon which men’s ambitions fatten. Her firm hand¬ 
clasp and her encouraging words fill the pantries of 
men’s souls. Her arms are their haven. She is a safe 
port and she asks no salvage. She is with man at his 
birth. She teaches his feet to walk, his tongue to 
speak. She watches over him through life, and folds 
his hands for him when he is dead. She will sing that 
he may not know of her hunger while he eats. She 
will lobby for him in her drawing room or work for 
him in a sweat shop. She will find him beautiful 
though all the world calls him ugly, and his vices she 
twists into virtues. 

“Her laughter may not be luminous but it warms 
men’s hearts. Her gentle touch is like a transfusion 
of blood to an anaemic. 

“Duty is her religion, love her Deity. For the lat¬ 
ter she will carry burdens, laugh at poverty, go into 
wildernesses, eat of wormwood, die! And never does 
she ask love to give. Taking could not make her 
happy. Giving enriches her. She is the buffer for 
her man and when the sharp corners of his troubles 
bruise her she hides the bruises with brave smiles that 
he may not guess them. 

“If there is a wanton among us here to-day, who 
wants to become a woman , let her turn her face to God. 


302 


SANDRA 


Let her ask Him for strength to begin life anew! It 
is never too late! Never too late to win spiritual 
support, without which one will surely reach a day 
where one cannot stand alone.” 

William James Hapgood saw the thickly-fringed 
lids of Sandra Waring’s amazed green eyes flicker 
under the stress of a rampant emotion, and he 
Sent a little hurried prayer to his Master, for help. 
If only he could make her see herself as she was! 
If only he could force the javelin of his analysis of 
her, through the armor of her pride! If only he could 
shame her by comparing her with a mother-woman like 
her old, frankly-scorned neighbor, Eve Stanley! If 
only he could do these things he would win her from 
skepticism—win her wayward feet to the path he so 
passionately wanted her to travel! If he could anger 
her—make her want to wait and talk with him—drive 
her to the need of defense or surrender! 

“The wanton jeers at mother-love!” he began again. 
“Because she is not honest with herself, she does not 
realize that the love of woman for man is maternal. 
She hungers for romance, and she does not know that 
it can be found in the clasp of a dear one’s hand, in 
the sound of a dear one’s voice! Contentment with 
one’s lot is the greatest of all happiness, but the 
mirage-lured makes small effort to be contented. She 
boasts that her soul is papier mache and that her con¬ 
science is asbestos! 

“I know a man whose wife-” 

He broke off abruptly, his hand lifted as though to 
beseech the woman who had risen from her seat and 
who stood bathed in the colorful reflection of a stained 



SANDRA 


SOS 

glass window, staring at him, to be seated again. But 
the woman’s slim figure swayed unsteadily toward the 
aisle. As he looked she lifted her head and gave him 
a fleeting, inscrutable smile, straightened the droop 
of her shapely shoulders, and moving off to the door— 
passed through it, and was gone. 

William James Hapgood wanted madly to run after 
her. She was going away—out of his life, and he felt 
that never again would he look into those unfathom¬ 
able green eyes, never again see that curiously fascinat¬ 
ing smile. She had come back out of far byways—had 
come here to him, and—he had tried to save her. / 

He closed his eyes and clung in an agony of fear to 
his rostrum. He must go on talking. He must say 
something. These were his people—his beloved flock. 
He could not forsake them for—for a high priestess 
of flesh-pots—for a beautiful wastrel 1 

“And so—” he continued, his blood pounding in his 
temples, his vision blurred. 

And somehow he managed to finish his sermon. 
While in the street outside a woman no longer young, 
was whispering to herself that romance was failing 
her, casting her off. 

Stephen Winslow had not wanted her when she had 
confessed to him, as many men confess to women, her 
little adventures. David to whom she might have 
gone with prayers of forgiveness, had already come to 
love another. And Jimsy, who might have offered 
balm and promises of unimagined eternal ecstasies, 
had flayed her with stinging truths—had scorned her 
—had censured her. 

Oh, well! Venice awaited her, and she had yet a 


304 


SANDRA 


year or two of factitious—youth! She had a year or 
two! A year or two! There must be something more 
to life than that which she had so far discovered. 
She’d spend that year or two exploring. After that— 
well, she would be ready to settle down somewhere and 
allow herself to drift into the hideousness of old age. 

Upon her return to Paris in the first week of May, 
she was keenly shocked to find her fickle coterie pay¬ 
ing extravagant homage to a svelt, somber-eyed Rus¬ 
sian—a real or pseudo princess. Where formerly— 
but a few short weeks ago—she had been adulantly 
sought, now she met with amazing indifference. 

She shrugged away the lonely hours with passion¬ 
ate disdain the while she looked about for fresh sources 
of excitement. But Paris seemed to have gone desti¬ 
tute of adventure—or was it that she no longer recog¬ 
nized adventure as adventure. She was at piteous 
loose ends for occupation. Her repose was no longer 
absolute. Cynicism flickered ungoverned across her 
set smile. Under her fine eyes cruelly stubborn lines 
began to write themselves into age hieroglyphics, and 
her years had begun to record themselves in legible 
tracings round her lovely, mobile mouth. 

Without acknowledging it to herself, she began to 
resent youth—youth as it came to her through the 
tinkle of a laugh—youth as it looked with honest or 
lying eyes into the face of youth—youth as it ran 
ahead of her up a flight of stairs or swam past her 
in the surf. 

Quite unconsciously she became unreasonably impa¬ 
tient with all flapperism. Toward a woman whose age 
was less than her own, she harbored a sharp intoler- 


SANDRA 


305 


ance. Hopefully she underwent further operations 
performed by suave plastic surgeons. Rut the skin¬ 
lifting process left her face taut and unexpressive. 

A physician to whom she went after her head had 
ached incessantly for weeks, asked her bluntly why 
she was ruining her eyes with Belladonna. 

“They must be bright,” she defended with a pa¬ 
thetic attempt at whimsicality. 

“As your daughter’s perhaps? That cannot be! 
They’ve begun to wear out. The only thing you can 
do, madame, is to wear glasses.” 

“I’m not old,” retorted Sandra angrily. “I’ve no 
daughter. And I shall not wear—glasses!” 

The man made an impatient sound by clicking his 
tongue against his teeth. 

“You are not young! And if you had a daughter, 
you’d have something else than yourself to think 
about, and somebody who would think about you. 
She’d see to it that you wore glasses, madame.” 

“Old age is only skin deep! My skin is smooth!” 

“Old age,” contradicted the physician, “is marrow 
deep. You can deceive that pretty face of yours, 
madame, but your joints—your protesting body! Ah, 
you cannot fool them with cosmetics. They’re tired.” 

He regarded her reprovingly from beneath his 
shaggy brows. 

“You should not have come to me for advice, until 
first you had purged your mind. More than anything 
else you need healthy interests, a creed unto which 
you can cling, and a philosophy that will enable you 
to grow old gracefully. Had you these things I could 
prescribe for you. As it is-” 


306 


SANDRA 


“As it is,” broke in Sandra, “you’re a fogey and 
you think your office is a pulpit!” 

And when presently she was alone in her room Rusty 
wept for her. 

She could no longer afford to keep a maid. Her 
resources were dwindling, and she was not addding to 
them. And without a maid her toilette ritual was 
becoming a lonely and an irksome affair. She got into 
the nightly and disturbing habit of thinking of David 
and how he used to brush her hair, remembering how 
occasionally he had buried his face in it, or lifted it 
to kiss the tiny curl that nestled against the back of 
her neck. Other men had, she knew, only sneers for 
the nocturnal beauty-aids to which women no longer 
young were driven to resort. David had understood. 
He hadn t in the least minded the cold cream or even 
the chin strap. How many times had he laughed up¬ 
roariously when her cold cream had made an a la mode 
of his goodnight kiss. He had been so indulgent about 
her little beauty secrets—David—though he had told 
her often and often that he would love her just the 
same when her chin came to sag and her eyes to grow 

dim. And now—she hadn’t even David to love her_ 

to hold her hand through that miserable on-coming old 
age! Not that she wanted him—regretted having left 
him! How could she regret! Was she not free! Had 
she not rid herself of bondage—of monotony? Had 
she to do the same thing twice if she chose 
not to do it? Had she anyone to consult about her 
daily life? ... Oh, no! She did not regret. But it 
was maddening to have Rusty saying over and over 
again to her: 

“Don’t you see that you’re weaving an ugly fabric? 


SANDRA 


307 


You’ve tangled your skein! You toss your shuttle care¬ 
lessly ! After all, isn’t Eve Stanley weaving some¬ 
thing finer and more beautiful than anything which 
you, with all your cleverness, can ever weave? Isn’t 
what you have always called the humdrum existence, 
in reality the contented, satisfying life?” 

And though at her daily beautifying tasks, she 
found a vague, unnerving admission gazing starkly at 
her from her mirrored eyes, she would not recognize 
it. She would not endure the thought of disastrous 
defeat. She did not, however, deny to herself that she 
was tired. 

The eternal effort at staying young! The fatiguing 
business of keeping up with thoughtless youth! The 
arrogant stubbornness of the lines round her eyes and 
mouth! The frank manner of the men who called her 
“old girl!” These were the things that were wearing 
her out. But still she persisted. Age was but skin 
deep! Behind those mocking lines she was young! 
They lied—those lines that defied massage! They 
lied ! They lied! She was young—tragically, indis¬ 
putably young. She loved life. She loved laughter. 
She loved romance and adventure. She loved love. 

And in spite of her efforts to stay it, life hurried 
so! She could but stand on a corner and watch it 
go past. Laughter, that came so easily to her lips, 
made people turn and stare at her. Moreover, romance 
and adventure seemed now to shrug their shoulders 
deprecatingly as they went out of their way to avoid 
her. And Love ignored her contemptuously. 

Trying to overcome her jealousy of youth, she 
smiled ingratiatingly at dancing debutantes and their 
young, sleek-haired male partners. And they smiled 


308 


SANDRA 


back at her in a hard, charitable manner. But her 
call of youth to youth they did not catch. It was as 
though she were a disembodied spirit trying to attract 
the attention of those in the flesh. Like a spirit— 
unconscious of the gulf that yawned between them— 
trying frantically to show those with whom it would 
laugh, that it was one of them. And like the hapless 
ghost she made her efforts in vain. The youth in her 
soul cried out to youth in the flesh, but youth in the 
flesh was deaf to her calls, would have thought her 
jesting had it heard. 

It was in the late summer that—being bitterly 
lonely, and frightened at the rapidity with which her 
bank account was dwindling—she went in desperation 
one morning to the Latin Quarter and offered herself 
as a model. At first the master to whom she applied, 
looked her over coldly and shook his head. He wanted 
young women—girls! But as he looked at her he 
became suddenly interested. There was a haunted, 
harried look in her eyes that would try the skill of 
his cleverest pupils. He softened. Perhaps after all, 
he could use her three mornings a week for a time. 
Was she at leisure this morning? She was! She 
smiled. She sparkled. She could have sung for joy. 
Not yet had Rusty beaten her! Not yet was she old! 

But the days and weeks of the early fall with their 
mornings at the art school, brought to her no exhilar¬ 
ating excitements, no stimulating adventures. Nerv¬ 
ously she would apply all her little tricks of make-up, 
use all her clever artifices, wondering if they would 
get by , only to return to her room at night, worn and 
dejected, tragic in the consciousness of failure. 


SANDRA 309 

Reduced at last to a point where she could no 
longer choose her admirers, she accepted rather grate¬ 
fully the advances of a slangy young American who 
had come to like sketching the face that held those 
intriguingly mysterious eyes. It was such a poor 
imitation of romance, yet it would warm her a little, 
and she could not afford to be too exacting. 

She managed to imbue the young man with a faint 
hint of her own obsession to taste of the romance of 
Venice—to stand on a balcony over-hanging a canal, 
and forget Time. Like pilgrims to a Mecca, they went 
in the early winter to find the moonlit balcony on 
which they should stand in those moments when Time 
would cease to be important. 

They were forced to unromantic economies inas¬ 
much as their combined capital was pitifully modest, 
but Venice was to them what a strange port is to a 
sailor, and for one ecstatic week they rode about the 
picturesque canals, she chanting vagrant scraps of 
Byron, he sketching with swift bold strokes of pencil 
or charcoal, or splashing riotous colors into gorgeous 
sunsets, wind-bellied sails, graceful gondolas and 
shawl-draped, soft-eyed women; drank coffee in the 
Square of San Marco, in the late afternoons; and 
stood each moon-ridden night on a narrow balcony 
that looked out upon a little canal which stretched like 
a silver thread behind the great cathedral. 

Then came the awakening for—Sandra. 

For an hour one night they had stood together on 
this star-roofed balcony, laughing, whispering, hum¬ 
ming snatches of an Italian song which they had 
learned in a rollicking little cafe, and sipping chiante 


310 


SANDRA 


from thin, glistening goblets which now and then 
Sandra filled from a small, straw-girded demijohn. 
And though she laughed and chatted and sang with 
him, she was realizing all at once, that Venice had 
failed her. She knew suddenly that it no more sat¬ 
isfied her than had Monte Carlo, Paris,—Sea Cliff. 
Indeed, she felt a dull homesickness for the sweet 
peacefulness of the house whose shining rear windows 
looked out upon a dreamy old bay, and whose front 
doors were flung wide when the first summer breeze 
whispered through the maple trees that edged its 
quiet street. 

Absently she answered some question diffidently 
asked by her companion, and fell instantly back again 
into her melancholy introspection. 

What was it she wanted? For what was she look¬ 
ing? In what had these romantic, long-dreamed-of 
cities failed her? Why was everything flat—tasteless 
•—lacking in flavor? 

She had lived! She had staved off old age! She 
had been courted! She had snapped her fingers at 
any conventions that threatened to withhold from her 
a pleasure. She had thrown restraint to the winds, 
despite the gloomy things which Channing Blair had pre¬ 
dicted about such a course. And yet—And yet- 

Was this all? Was there nothing more to life than 
— this? Wasn’t there something else—something that 
had evaded her—or had been blindly ignored by her? 
Had Eve Stanley found it? Had Jimsy? Was it 
motherhood? Was it a God? Was it- 

“Shay, listen! I’ve spoken to you three times—and 
you’ve not even—nodded your head. Wha’s matter. 
Gorgeous ?” 




SANDRA 


311 


Sandra set her thin wine glass down upon a 
tabouret, and turned to the man with a mirthless 
laugh. A bare shoulder lifted deprecatingly. 

“Thinking about poor George Sand,” she explained 
softly, and she did not notice that for the first time 
she had mentioned the name pityingly . 

“She was an old fool!” muttered the man rather 
thickly, handing his empty glass to her with a nod 
of his head which meant that she was to refill it. 

“'You’ve been drinking whiskey again,” she observed 
reprovingly, “and adding all this wine to it is bad.” 

“Englishman on the floor below! Nishe man. In¬ 
vited me into his room for whiskey’n soda. In 
’Merica-” 

“Oh!” murmured Sandra, setting his goblet down 
unfilled, and turning to open the long glass doors 
that gave upon a living room beyond. 

“I don’t think you know,” she raised her darkening 
eyes to his leering face, “how repulsive your condition 
makes you.” 

“Ought to be glad to have me—any condition!” 

He reached an arm toward her but she escaped it 
and went inside. 

She made her way to the faded, old-fashioned bed¬ 
chamber, and crossing its threshold turned to lock the 
door, when the man pushed it unceremoniously open 
and entered. He did not speak but began to wander 
aimlessly about, laughing unpleasantly. He paused 
finally beside the high old-fashioned bureau, and 
pointed a finger interrogatively at something which 
lay upon it that piqued his curiosity. 

“Wha’s that?” 

Sandra hesitated. Then her eyes narrowed specu- 



312 


SANDRA 


latively. She had heard that a drunken man usually 
tells the bald truth—that his training in tact and 
flattery sloughs off him like a too-loose coat. 

“It’s a chin strap,” she informed him in a low, 
steady voice. 

“Chin strap!” 

“Yes, a chin strap.” 

“Oh, I shee! Harnesh! Huh! Getting a stringy 
neck and this Lydia Pinkham—re—reju—rejuvena- 
tor is s’posed to work while you sleep.” 

“It helps to preserve the beauty,” returned Sandra, 
a dangerous light coming into her eyes, “of which 
you’ve been so proud here in Venice.” 

“Preserve is—-is right!” he chuckled jeeringly. “I 
been wondering-” 

“Yes?” urged Sandra fiercely. 

“Just zhactly—how old you are, Gorgeous.” 

Sandra’s eyes were blazing now. She stood straight 
and rigid near the door, her face colorless, her hands 
clinging to each other desperately. 

“Don’t mind if you’re thirty,” he conceded amiably. 
“But seeing you acsh’dently other morning—’fore you 
—’fore you got your paints on, made me wonder—if 

—if-Hanged! if I don’t think you may ’member 

the—the building of the pyramids.” 

A sickening dizziness dulled Sandra’s faculties for 
an instant. Her mouth went dry, and the man near the 
bureau twisted and wavered into a frightful gargoyle. 
The room went a mottled black. She was faint and 
nauseated. But immediately there rushed through her 
a volcanic fury—a snapping, hissing, flaming desire 
to kill, which vitalized her. 




SANDRA 313 

“Get out of this room,” she ordered, her voice a 
sharp, thin whisper. 

“Yes?” 

‘Yes!” 

The man looked at her wonderingly. Then elevat¬ 
ing his brows in puzzlement, and smiling inanely, he 
staggered out of the room and allowed the door to 
slam shut behind him. 

Sandra stared intently at the closed door for the 
space of a long, strangling breath. Sobbing dryly 
she began to walk up and down the room, the short, 
pointed train of her black evening gown slinking 
snakily after her, her hands lifting frantically now 
and then to twist their fingers in the riotous mass of 
her tawny hair. 

The man’s disillusionment she could have endured, 
though the humiliation of it would have stung her 
poignantly. But to be disillusioned herself was to 
know keenest agony. She had fooled this man and 
had known she was fooling him. She had fooled her¬ 
self and had not known she was doing it. She had 
fooled herself into believing that she could go on for¬ 
ever fooling this last of her admirers. She had fooled 
herself into believing that this Venetian episode was 
a love paean—a song played on a man’s heart strings! 
It had been in reality—an orgy and a vacation for 
the man. This room which she had likened, in a poetic 
moment, to a sacristy, had been actually a brothel. 
It was now the tawdry sepulcher of passions lavishly 
spent. 

And it was to this she had come! To this she had 
brought David's shamed , sorrowing Rusty! 


CHAPTER XXII 


F IVE weeks later Sandra Waring arrived in New 
York, and though the last of her money—with 
the exception of a few dollars—was spent for 
her passage, she had been by far the most sparkingly 
brilliant passenger aboard a ship chiefly patronized 
by sparklingly brilliant travelers. 

She could not afford a suite of rooms at the Plaza, 
so pretending to think it rather a lark, she took a 
small court room in a house on Lexington Avenue, out 
of which she nevertheless hurried, two seconds after 
she had seen her luggage installed. 

She would have a luncheon at Sherry’s! She could 
afford that because—well, she needed the tonic which 
Sherry’s air of smartness would administer to her. 
She was looking very smart herself. She knew that. 
And yet, somehow she felt jaded. Foolish she! As if 
she were not as fresh and alert as any woman who 
would go that day to Sherry’s! 

Oh, but couldn’t she tell those restless-eyed women 
—things that would send them to the quiet of their 
homes in a panic! Wouldn’t they be frightened if she 
stood up in their midst and told them what the—the 

far corners were like! If she stripped herself—- 

This was Rusty again! Rusty! Rusty! Always 
there was Rusty smothering her joys with sighs. 
Always there was Rusty muffling her laughter with 
sobs. 


314 



SANDRA 


315 


Nonchalantly she sat at a table in Sherry’s and 
leaning her arms upon it, drank in the richness of the 
room, intoxicating herself with its insidious promises, 
until her half-veiled eyes glowed to a green phosphor¬ 
escence, and her lips parted breathlessly. 

When she had paid her check there was left in her 
purse a lone ten dollar bill, and with this she made a 
purchase in a smart Fifth Avenue shop, of a carefully 
selected garment, after which important business she 
made inquiry of a traffic officer, and following his in¬ 
structions, crossed to Broadway in search of David’s 
theater. 

She walked along leisurely, indifferently, glancing 
into shop windows, smiling with a whimsical under¬ 
standing at groups of sparrows that here and there 
quarreled over a find in the oil-streaked street, drew 
her fur wrap luxuriously closer around her at the 
crossings where January breathed more flurrily, and 
smiled up now and then at the drab sky overhead as 
though she shared a secret with it. And then ab¬ 
ruptly she came to a stop, and her breath caught in 
her slim fur swathed throat. 

David’s theater! 

She hadn’t guessed how fine a thing it would be! 
She had never dreamed that stone and mortar, mar¬ 
ble and plaster could be made to express so much 
beauty! It was, indeed, frozen music! It was poetry 
chiseled into great columns and fluted pilasters. It 
was Love mortared to Love! It was the gigantic 
cast of a great soul! And—David—her David—had 
built it! 

She came a step closer and oblivious of the passing 


316 


SANDRA 


throngs of self-centered, faintly curious pedestrians, 
she leaned against one of the cold marble columns, and 
looked with treacherously swimming eyes at the 
carved and frescoed ceiling of the open lobby. 

How splendid that he could have conceived this mas¬ 
terpiece! How—how proud he must be! And_ 

Mate! She came here with him sometimes, perhaps, 
and glowed with him rapturously! She’d bring with 
them, her son-some day! And they’d stand over 
there across the street, David and—and Mate and 
the—the little son that—that should have—should 
have been hers, and they’d look up at the inspiring 

fa 9 ade of this place, with moist eyes. And maybe_ 

maybe David—for just one little minute—would be_ 

remembering that—that long ago night when she had 
sprinkled the fairydust on the windowsill of his—of 
his beloved Rusty’s bed chamber. And maybe then— 
Oh, maybe then he would—forgive! 

“David!” she whispered, pressing a white cheek to 
the impassive gray marble. “Remember how we used 
to fish, and sail, and swim together! Remember how 
frightened you used to be when—when I’d want to 
swim in dangerous places?” 

She lifted her face a little and ran a trembling hand 
caressingly up and down the polished, unresponsive 
surface of the column, as though she would persuade 
it to speak. 

Funny, wasn t it,” she whispered, falling back into 
David’s manner of speech, “how much I always hated 
the safety of the calm, quiet places! I—I had to 
risk myself, didn’t I, David—David dear! And then, 


SANDRA 


317 


Oh, David! I wonder if you know what—has finally 
happened.” 

She tilted her head again and looked through the 
veil of her wet lashes at the unanswering column. 
“Listen,” she confided softly, “and I’ll tell you. I— 
I got somehow into an eddy, and it —it sucked me 
down! And now I can’t swim! I can't swim! I—can 
never get bach to the top!" 

For a brief interval she stood there, her wet cheek 
pressed with abject tenderness to the great marble 
pillar which was a part of David’s conception, her 
throat moving convulsively under her fur, her aching 
eyes closed. Then with a “goodbye” breathed like a 
kiss against the column which his hands had perhaps 
touched, she slid wraithlike into the human river that 
surged down the street. 

It was ten o’clock on the following morning that 
David Waring called William James Hapgood on the 
telephone and said in a tense, unnatural voice: 

“Wanted to—to tell you about Sandra—” He 
found himself groping for words. “She’s—she’s-” 

“David! What are you trying to say?” Hap- 
good’s temples began to throb. Cold perspiration 
came out upon his smooth upper lip. “Sandra is— 
is what?" 

Came a silence. 

Finally David said huskily: 

“Just been notified of—her death. She—she’s in a 
rooming house on Lexington Avenue. Woman called 
me. Said a note to—her had contained—my phone 
number. I—I want you to go there with me. I—think 



318 


SANDRA 


she would like—it—to be that way. And—maybe 
there’s something—you can—do.” He paused. 

He could not put into words what he would be 
wanting his friend to do, but he hoped William would 
understand. 

Sandra ! Dead! And after another short silence. 

I think, David, it might be—better if you—went 
alone. Still if you-” 

“I want you to come, William. You can—” David 
hesitated again in his search for words. “Perhaps,” 
he went on haltingly, laboring to express himself, “you 
can speak to her— soul, now that it’s free from— 
from-” 

“Where can I meet you?” inquired William James 
hurriedly. 

“I’m at the cigar shop below your house. I’ll wait 
here.” 

Followed a silent handclasp in front of the flamboy¬ 
ant little cigar shop and a silent journey to the house 
in Lexington Avenue. Once, immediately they were 
seated in David Waring’s car, Hapgood spoke, and 
David answered by a nod of his great head and a 
pained glance .from his troubled blue eyes. Hapgood 
had wanted to know if it were—suicide. 

She left this note on her dresser,” informed the 
grim-visaged woman who answered their ring at the 
scarred, old brown stone house, up the crumbling 
stoop of which they presently climbed. “It’s addressed 
to a Mr. David Waring. The police and the news- 
paper men wanted to take it away, but I kept it, 
thinking it might get lost with them. Is either of 
you gentlemen this Mr. David Waring?” 


SANDRA 


319 


She eyed them both curiously. 

“It is for me,” announced David quietly, extending 
hie hand for the letter. 

“Got anything, on you to prove it?” she inquired 
suspiciously with a look of apology directed at the 
man whose attire she recognized as being that of a 
clergyman. 

David fumbled nervously in his pockets and pro¬ 
duced satisfactory credentials—his card, a letter or 
two and a leather wallet on which was a small gold 
plate with his name. 

“ ’S just as well to be sure,” muttered the woman, 
handing over the letter and making an obvious effort 
to be kindly. “Sorry if she’s a relative.” Then craft¬ 
ily: “She’s got three trunks of clothes here. But I 
guess you won’t be wanting them, seeing as they’d only 
make you feel bad.” 

“We’ll arrange about her effects later,” put in 
Hapgood hastily. He looked up at her with his 
steady brown eyes. “If you’ll permit us to ” 

“Certain’y!” The woman backed into the shadowy 
vestibule, allowing the two men to follow her. She 
had turned to the shabbily-carpeted stairs, when she 
appeared to remember something. 

“It says on that envelope that the lady wished 
you to read her letter before you call in to see her. 
Mighty queer way she put it—that!” 

David held the envelope toward a ray of light that 
filtered through the frosted glass of the high walnut 
door, and read the words written in Sandra’s hand 
across one end of it. They were: 

Please read contents before you call in to see me . 



320 


SANDRA 


And without remembering to thank the woman or 
to explain to William, he tore the envelope open, and 
extracted the letter. The paper rattled in his shak¬ 
ing hands as he read: 

Pve an assignation with Death, David, and I’m 
more than three years late. Three years and two 
months since the day I should have met the old 
Reaper! Isn’t it ironic, David, that I who have so 
fiercely hated old age, shall within the hour be the 
bride of the bearded old Stalker! And isn’t it like 
me, David, to take Rusty along with me into the 
Never-never Land! Selfish to the last! At least, 
David boy, (you won’t mind, will you, if I call you 
that this one last time?) you’ll concede that I’m con¬ 
sistent in my vices if not in my virtues—granting for 
old time’s sake, that I am not completely destitute of 
the latter. 

About Rusty: When I left you, David, I think I 
broke her heart. She used to cry terribly at first, 
after I’d dragged her away with me. And all through 
the years—these mad three years—she never left off 
imploring me to return to you. She talked to me 
about you all of last night. Talked! Wept! Talked! 
Oh, David, isn’t it a pity you couldn’t have had Rusty 
without having to have me! 

And now—with a tiny, most artistic pearl handled 
agent of Death lying here on the table in front of 
me—she is frightened. But not I, David! I’ve found 
life so wanting in Romance—so empty of the wines I 
craved. And now at last, I’m gonig into the Great 
Adventure! I’m rather excited about it. Think of 


SANDRA 


321 


it! Just a touch of my finger t6 that little metal 
trigger and—I will be a part of the Infinite! 

Then, too, I am tired. And out there I shall not 
have to bother about the permanent wave and that 
wretched chin strap. Keeping young has been such 
a desperate struggle. It has tired me so! 

Sometimes Rusty has almost made me envy Eve and 
her “lovely humdrum”—Rusty’s words. But there 
was always within me that urge to seek and to keep 
on seeking. Napoleon had it! Perhaps, I shall meet 
him out there, and if I do—he will understand me, 
David. 

Tell Eve and Peter that I said goodbye to them, and 
that I still thought they were stodgy. 

And Jimsy! Dead old sky pilot! Tell him, David, 
that I went into the Great Unknown snapping my 
|| fingers at Bondage. Even life could not hold me 
when Death offered escape from impending monotony. 

In a little while I shall know more about the myste¬ 
ries of the Universe than Jimsy has learned through all 
his years of studying and—believing. And the God 
Jimsy worships and fears , through blind faith—if He 
is real, I shall have met Him, and He shall have shown 
me if He is truly merciful. And so, to my dear old 
Simon-Called-Peter, the Jimsy who tried to save me, I 
leave a triumphant wave of my hand. 

Tell Mate that I wished her every happiness as your 
wife. No, not that! Just tell her, David, that I hoped 
for her Contentment. Once I heard a sermon in which 
the clergyman said that Contentment was the greatest 
of all happinesses. If this is true, then I can have 


322 


SANDRA 


wished for her nothing finer. Tell her I’m glad you 
have learned to love her. Be sure to tell her this. She 
may not be entirely happy if she thinks I was not glad! 
And Oh, David! believe me, I am glad! I am! I am! 
I am! 

As for you, David boy, if some day you too come out 
there—in the decent natural way, you will understand 
my madness. All mysteries are explained out there— 
and if they are not—well, they will cease to trouble us. 

Now that it will embarrass neither of us, I think I 
may as well tell you, David, that always I have loved 
you. I know this now—have known it vaguely for a 
long time. The thing that I mistook for maternal 
tenderness was in reality love —the only kind of love 
that counts. But like thousands of other women, 
women less brave—or less foolish than I was—I hun¬ 
gered for the great passion the like of which one sees in 
plays or reads about in books, and for all the excite¬ 
ments that I imagined the world was withholding from 
me. And Discontent came and sneered at my humdrum 
existence. Humdrum! That’s what my kind of woman 
calls Peacefulness! I went out into that fascinating 
world and—took your Rusty with me. But no single 
stain has touched her, David. No single stain. She 
has been with me, but not of me. You, David, are the 
only man who ever knew Rusty. And if there is con¬ 
sciousness out there and—you should come one day in 
the natural way, do you think Mate would care if you 
took Rusty’s hand and—forgave her? 

As for me, David dear, I salute you in the old way, 
I lay a finger on each of your eyes and wish you all 


SANDRA 323 

good things. And now—I go to break the fresh trail. 
I’ve reached the end of the pier! 

Sand&a. 


On the next sheet was written: 

David darling: 

This is I—Rusty. While Sandra is in a softened 
mood, I shall write just to say goodbye, and to tell 
you, dear, that this mad self we have known as Sandra, 
is taking me out into the Beyond. All of last night she 
listened to me. And this morning she sang as she made 
her last toilette: 

“Oh, memories that bless and burn! 

Oh, little gain and bitter loss [” 

and when I looked in the glass there were tears in her 
eyes. 

Oh, my big-hearted David, my dear Peter Pan, be 
kind in your thoughts of her! Pity her as I am pitying 
her! And when it is all over try to remember only her 
virtues. 

In her small leather bag you will find an old briar 
pipe. It is yours. I thought you might like to know. 

Goodbye, David! My darling! My darling! Goodbye! 

Rusty. 

David continued to stare for several minutes at the 
half dozen sheets of note paper in his hand. He was 
remembering with an agony of clearness, the two let¬ 
ters which he had read that unhappy night three years 
ago. Thick cords stood out on his muscular throat. 


324. 


SANDRA 


and veins distended at his temples. He shook himself 
suddenly like a great mastiff coming out of sleep, and 
sorting out two pages of Sandra’s letter handed them, 
without speaking, to the grave-faced man standing 
near. And when Hapgood had read them and handed 
them tremblingly back to him, David glanced inquir- 
ingly at the intensely curious woman. 

“She’s upstairs. They ain’t moved her yet,” she 
told him, jerking her grizzled, untidy head toward the 
stairs. “She’s just as she was when I found her, only 
I put her lace shawl over the wound. She must have 
laid down and then fired the thing into her side, so as 
her pretty white breast wouldn’t get messed up. 
She’s-” 

“Oh! Please ! Please !” cried David, gently touching 
her arm. 

“You’re hurting him,” protested William James, 
poignant hurt in his own brown eyes. 

The woman pursed her thin lips skeptically, and led 
the way up the steps and to the door of a hall room. 

“She’s in there,” she said, reluctantly backing away. 

“Thanks,” returned William James Hapgood, turn¬ 
ing to put a compassionate hand on David’s quivering 
shoulder. 

And together they went into the room where Sandra’s 
remains awaited them—these two men who had loved 
her. 

She lay at full length on a bed drawn to the center 
of the floor, dressed as for a wedding. Her slender 
figure shrouded in a white lace gown, a corsage bouquet 
of bride’s roses thrust through the silken rope that 
girded the waist, her feet encased in slim white satin 



SANDRA 325 

dancing slippers, a lace shawl flung across her left 
side. 

How carefully she had made up for this last assigna¬ 
tion. Her hair was arranged in that individual riotous 
mass at the top of her small, shapely head. The lashes 
of the white lids that had closed forever over the in¬ 
scrutable green eyes, were stained to a startling black, 
and the marble whiteness of each cheek was delicately 
rouged. The stilled lips—curved to a half-mocking, 
half-expectant smile—were a ghastly, vivid red. Her 
hands—in life so strangely expressive, now so weirdly 
immobile, were like exquisite plaster casts into which 
someone had inserted lustrous pink nails. 

“Oh, little gain and bitter loss!” cried David drop¬ 
ping to his knees and burying his face in the folds of 
the white lace gown. “Oh, Rusty !” he sobbed. “Rusty! 
Rusty!" 

“I think she did it for you and—Mate,” muttered 
Hapgood, driven to speak the thing as it came into his 
mind. Then more tactfully: “She was gallant, you 
know, David. Her fault was the courage of her con¬ 
victions. She believed the world had something for her 
and—she went after it.” 

And from the lace that was wet with his tears, came 
David’s husky voice: 

“And she wouldn’t turn back! She wouldn’t turn 
back! She—she went on, William. Straight on to the 
en d—of the pier! and I wasn’t there to—save her.” 

William James Hapgood knelt down beside the man 
who had been the husband of this woman whom he had 
loved, and there he made his confession to David and 


826 SANDRA 

to his God. And there he asked forgiveness of them 
both and—of Sandra. 

Twenty minutes later when they were passing out of 
the house, a tall man with a peculiarly graceful walk 
came up the steps of the stoop and with a whispered 
word to the grim-faced woman who stood just inside 
the open door, stepped into the shadowed vestibule. 

He did not look up. His head was bent, his gaze 
scarcely left the toes of his gray-spatted shoes, nor 
did David lift his eyes to him, but William James Hap- 
good had recognized him in one swift glance, and he 
turned and looked sorrowfully—almost pityingly— 
after him. 

It was Stephen Winslow—the grinning satyr who 
once had sneered at love! 

And so these three men who had loved Sandra War¬ 
ing paid a tribute of sorrow—each to the passing 
of the Sandra he had known. 

“I should think,” remarked Robert Stanley, for more 
than two months a member of his father’s firm, “that 
you’d open your registered package, after I went all 
the way over to that dinky post office for it!” 

“Mate is not well this evening, dear,” reprimanded 
Eve, her solicitous gaze on a brown-eyed girl at the end 
of the dinner table. “Sandra Waring’s death has been 
a great shock to her. Poor old David!” she added, 
glancing through the windows to the house next door 
whose jutting ell was the study where Sandra had first 
told David about the fairydust, “I wish he would get 
home soon. When he telephoned, his voice was so—so 
broken!” 


SANDRA 


327 


“It would be, naturally,” commented her son, butter¬ 
ing a roll thoughtfully. “But after all, he and 
Mate-” 

“Bobbie! Bobbie! How can you! How can you!” 
Mate Stanley sprang up from the table and ran 
round it to her mother. “Oh, mumsey dear! I never 
told you! But I—I saw her one day— Sandra! And 
she—she said such terrible things to me. I—I don’t 
believe them now. I know she was saying them for—for 
a reason. And I went away from her, mumsey. Went 
away as if I was a—afraid of being contaminated. I 
—Oh! Mrs. Sandra! Rusty darling! I’m sorry! For¬ 
give me! Forgive me!” 

She sank to her knees by her mother’s side and there, 
with a gently caressing mother-hand on her small brown 
head, little Mate Stanley sobbed herself into a sweet 
calm, and there David found her. 

“She—she’s dead!” he said dully, coming into the 
Stanley dining room and looking first at Eve and then 
at Mate’s bowed head. “She’s dead!” 

“She’s resting,” corrected the girl, rising at once 
and placing a timid hand on his arm. “She’s resting, 
David.” 

“Yes. I know,” assented David softly. 

“She’s going to wait for us there!” 

“And you won’t mind. Mate, if I—if I take her 
hand-” 

“I’ll want you to, David! You—you belonged to— 
to her first!” 

David looked down at her mistily. Then slowly his 
gaze wandered off toward the lighted window of his 
study next door. 




328 


SANDRA 


“Till I’m a handful of dust, Rusty,” he was saying 
in his aching memory. “Till I’m a handful of dust!” 

“Well, if you’re not going to open your package, 
Mate,” exclaimed her brother, discomfited by the tragic 
scene, “I’ll open it myself.” And suiting action to his 
words, he caught up a silver knife and cut the sealed 
cord. 

Hoping to distract the attention of his sister and of 
the man who kept looking across at the house where 
once had lived the woman who to-night was dead, he 
made an ejaculatory fuss over the business of opening 
the fiat, gray, cardboard box that he found beneath 
the brown paper covering. Gingerly and with little 
exclamations of wonder, and furtive, hopeful glances 
at the pair whom he wanted so much to draw for an 
instant away from sorrow, he unfolded the white tis¬ 
sue paper wrappings, and with a little cry, lifted a 
silken thing into the air. 

“A yellow nightgown!” he cried with an effort at 
gaiety. 

“A yellow nightgown!” repeated moist-eyed Mate 
Stanley, awesomely understanding. 

“A yellow nightgown!” echoed David Waring, sor¬ 
rowfully reminiscent. 


THE END 














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